


The Jade Coin

by ximeria



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, First Kiss, First Time, Humor, Inspired by a Movie, Legends, M/M, Treasure Hunting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-02-09
Packaged: 2017-11-23 06:34:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 53,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/619144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ximeria/pseuds/ximeria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A jade coin sets off a certain string of events and Erik and Charles end up chasing the legend of legends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This originally began as a fusion idea between XMFC and Indiana Jones, then took on the feel of Romancing the Stone and similar movies, the action/adventure type movie with booby traps, inscriptions on ancient stones and strange puzzles. Eventually it became a love story between two stubborn men who apparently need life threatening dangers to realize that life is too short for not taking chances.
> 
> Thanks to [oonaseckar](http://archiveofourown.org/users/oonaseckar/pseuds/oonaseckar), for her beta-work (I am in awe of anyone taking on 50K+ words just like that).
> 
> Edited to ad: The story is fully written and the last few chapters in beta. It stands no risk of not being finished *grins* - I'm just doing the last few tweaks. The story should end up with 23 chapters in all.

**Prologue**

Erik ducked inside one of the smaller seating compartments, carefully shutting the door behind him. The train rolled on and he could feel as it gained velocity, the metal vibrating with the increasing speed. The compartment was empty, it being late in the evening. He just had to sit, wait and hopefully he'd get out without anyone stopping him.

Hopefully.

Stowing his bag into the the overhead net, Erik sat down and felt almost stupid, pulling a newspaper up to cover his face. With any luck, he'd be across the border soon and he could make his way towards home.

Of course things didn't turn out as smoothly as he'd hoped. He knew they were coming, could feel their weapons, concealed as they were. Erik sighed deeply. He fused the door closed, pulled the curtain, knowing very well that it would only, at best, buy him seconds.

Though, of course, seconds were maybe all he needed in the end. Patting his chest, he felt the small pouch nestled there. He pulled his bag down, strapped it to his back and put his hand against the inside of the hull of the train, slowly peeling the metal aside. 

The train was going too fast for him to just bail out, but he sent Charles a thankful thought for thinking up harebrained tests and trials for Erik to use his powers on. Charles might give him hell if he could see him that very moment, putting them to good use, but then again...

Erik allowed himself a small grin. Considering the shit he'd dragged Charles into over the years, Charles really would give him hell for this, if he ever learned of it.

He could feel the weapons on the other side of the door, gripped by men who weren't afraid to fire them. Outside the night rushed past, the air cool and fresh, the wind tearing at him. With a widening and, he knew Charles would consider it, maddening grin, he stepped up to the hole, held onto the edges and took a deep breath before throwing himself out through it.

Air whipped around him as he felt out all the metal in the ground, in the far off mountains, in the magnetic fields of the Earth and the rushing train.

Using the latter to steady himself, the metal serving to keep him at the same speed as the train at first, then he slowed his fall, folding the opening in the train back in - leaving barely a scar.

The rocky ground felt strange under his feet for a moment, until he steadied himself. He watched the train disappearing in the darkness, drew his hat from the backpack, slipping it on and tipping it. Time to go home.

\---♦♦♦---♦♦♦---

**Chapter 1**

Erik slipped through the door and sat down at the back of the class. Charles, of course, was so focused on his lecture that he didn't notice Erik's entrance. Normally Erik wouldn't be able to sneak up on Charles like that, but Charles kept his shields high and strong when in class. The few times he hadn't, Erik knew he'd come away with a horrible headache and blushing at things he refused to share with Erik.

Considering Erik could tell half the students were ogling Charles instead of paying attention to the lecture on... Erik paused, checking the smart board behind Charles. Ah, legend of Atlantis. Well, he could tell that if Charles dropped his shields, he'd be blushing harder than ever.

The heavy shielding meant Erik could spare a minute or two to do as the students. He was normally so careful about what he focused on around Charles, even though he knew Charles wouldn't read his mind uninvited. And Charles _had_ taught him to shield himself quite efficiently, something Erik was eternally grateful for.

He'd known Charles for a decade, had always felt more than just fond about him, but the infatuation that he'd expected to fade at some point... hadn't. He strongly suspected that it never would. And who could blame him? Not only was Charles a good looking guy, he was funny as hell in his own dry way. He also never backed down when it came to Erik, which only made Erik...

Erik clamped down on those thoughts. He made sure they were hidden away and his shields in place before he looked back up at Charles, who was answering a question from one of the students. He couldn't help smiling as Charles pushed his glasses up on his nose. His friend didn't strictly speaking need those glasses, but Charles kept claiming that they helped him focus.

Erik strongly suspected that Charles wore them to seem more like a professor, to help him look older. Half his peers were old enough to be his grandfathers or -mothers - a few probably great-grand as well. Erik grinned to himself, focusing on the steel frame of the glasses, pulling them down Charles' nose.

Charles looked mildly surprised for a moment, then pushed the glasses up and continued his lecture.

That really would not do, Erik thought to himself. Another tug and the glasses slid down to the tip of Charles' nose.

This earned him another endearingly cute frown and Erik clamped down on his mirth.

Too late, though, as Charles looked up, homing in on Erik a split second later.

_'Erik. Magnus. Lehnsherr!'_

Charles continued his lecture, but Erik could feel the flare of annoyance and happiness. A mixture, he had learned, that he seemed to cause in Charles on a regular basis. One, also, that he was pretty proud to cause. The fond exasperation had come early in their friendship and it never failed to warm Erik in places he would never dream of sharing with anyone. Least of all Charles.

Charles looked at his watch and Erik could feel the familiar metal of it, every little cogwheel and screw. It had been a gift from Erik on the day Charles had made Professor and Charles never went anywhere without it.

A thought that was shoved down into the airtight compartment along with his other feelings for Charles. At least the ones that were a lot more than brotherly in nature.

"I want you to read the last two chapters in Antediluvian World and prepare for a paper on the plausibility of Atlantis ever having existed."

When the students groaned in despair, Charles held up a hand.

"I'm not expecting more than a maximum of ten pages, but I want you to keep in mind what we've talked about here, what you've read and while I know it's tempting, please don't copy whole segments from Wikipedia - and if you can't help it," he added, a quirk of his lips giving his severe expression a softer light, "at least proofread it and use your brain - if it sounds wrong, it probably is wrong."

There was a snigger here and there, but the students got up to leave.

"Also," Charles called out. "I have to cancel my office hours today, but feel free to use the email you have if you have any questions. Next week's lessons are cancelled, so you'll have two weeks for this assignment."

Erik stood as he watched a small cluster of starry eyed boys and girls gather around Charles. While he was sure, Charles was doing his level best to turn them away, Erik knew him too well. An interesting question and Charles would be stuck there for another few hours.

Sauntering down to the front of the class, Erik caught Charles' eyes and he could tell that he had Charles' full attention. Something that seemed to occur to the students a moment later, eight pairs of eyes turning and if looks could kill...

Erik would be a pile of smoking remains on the floor.

It only made him grin wider and he knew he looked like a deranged madman. Charles' projected exasperation only supported that thought.

Erik just stopped short of the students and kept smiling, until the kids, who were staring at him in surprise, finally began making moves to leave. Erik didn't particularly mind the way they were looking at him as well. There were pretty equal parts of animosity and lust.

 _'Stop causing my students to become even more hormonally unbalanced,'_ Charles chided him.

Erik just raised an eyebrow at him, knowing he looked good in his jeans and tight t-shirt. Even if Charles would never admit to this. What was the harm in the students lusting a bit over him instead of Charles?

"My friend," Charles said with a sigh when the last of the students had left the class. "My friend, seriously, half the students wanted to kill you for that interruption and the other half are wondering what we'll be doing in here now that they're gone." The last admission came with a flushed coloring of Charles' cheeks.

Erik did not think about how much he wanted those students to be right, because that might catch Charles' attention. "So, you're saying it would be bad if the students thought you were gay?"

Charles sighed and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right. Because that's how I am, Erik."

Erik just laughed out loud and stepped forward, pulling Charles into a heartfelt embrace. For all their banter, he had missed Charles the last six weeks.

"I missed you too," Charles mumbled into Erik's shirt, his whole frame relaxing.

Erik just stayed where he was, knowing there was a fine line between feeling good and feeling awkward. Just short of it happening, Charles gave him one last squeeze and stepped back.

Staring for a few seconds, Erik jolted himself back into the moment. "I've got something for you," he said with a wink. Never awkward, never show that he wanted this more than anything else. Because it was possible that Charles would stop touching Erik like this, stop feeling so relaxed about it.

Reaching inside his shirt, he drew out the small pouch. Pulling it up and over his head, he loosened the string and pulled the leather folds apart, holding it out for Charles to see.

"Oh, my…" Charles' eyes widened as he watched it, reaching halfway towards it, then stopping, hand hovering over Erik's outstretched one.

"Go ahead," Erik said, feeling the usual happiness of sharing something like this with Charles.

Charles' hand seemed to shake a little as he took the small coin, the color of jade, clear and beautiful in the artificial light of the classroom.

"Oh my," he breathed, holding it up to read what it said.

Erik had already made out more than a few of the etchings on the coin. He knew what it was about, but the details were for Charles to charm out of it. It was his area of expertise, his dream.

"This is beautiful, Erik," Charles whispered, grabbing a looking glass from the desk and studying the coin.

"Was I right?" Erik asked quietly, watching Charles more than the coin. Beautiful indeed.

"Killa Yuraq," Charles said reverently. "The city of the White Moon and there, the fountain of eternal life."

Erik allowed himself a small smile. "I done good?"

"You done magnificently, my friend," Charles said, finally looking up, his blue eyes shining. "I think it's time for a little adventure, don't you?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The city of Killa Yuraq is completely fictional and merely made up of the words 'moon' and 'white' in Queuchua)


	2. Chapter 2

Erik sat back on the couch, feeling more at home than he normally did anywhere. Leaning his head back onto the back of the couch, he closed his eyes.

_'If you're tired Erik, take a nap,'_ Charles projected at him, from the bedroom where he was packing his bags.

"Butt out," Erik mumbled.

_'Seriously, Erik, we've got plenty of time, your clothes are in the washer and we're not leaving till 2PM tomorrow,"_ Charles continued.

"Your couch is uncomfortable," Erik muttered, feeling sleep tugging at his mind.

"So, take my bed," Charles said quietly.

Erik opened one eye, looking up at Charles who was standing behind the couch. "You're upside down," was all he could think of saying.

"You are beyond crashing," Charles told him, a small smile curving his lips and Erik was too tired to not focus on them. "And you're too heavy for me to drag you to bed."

A moment later, Charles had walked around the couch, and was standing in front of him. He held out a hand, then both hands, wiggling his fingers.

Erik stared at them, for a moment wondering if it was worth moving, then remembered just how many times he had fallen asleep on the couch and how many times he had regretted it. Numbers that added up pretty evenly.

So he shored up on his mental shields before reaching out and taking Charles' hands.

Charles laughed and pulled, trying to get Erik off the couch. He managed halfway and then Erik fell back on the couch, Charles losing his footing and ending up in a tangle with Erik. Well, pretty much in Erik's lap.

"Hello, little boy," Erik laughed and wrapped his arms around him. He couldn't help himself. He was so tired and Charles was nice and warm.

"Erik!" Charles tried to look stern and failed utterly. "Three years your junior, does not make me a little boy." He struggled against Erik for a moment, then relaxed. "Old man."

"You are, physically," Erik muttered sleepily.

"Erik, I will never forgive you if you force me to sleep on the couch with you," Charles threatened him.

"All right, all right," Erik relented, letting Charles get back on his feet. A hand was extended again and this time, Erik let himself be pulled to his feet.

"Now, go sleep, I've still got some stuff to look into before we leave," Charles said, looking up at Erik, his expression soft and earnest.

"You need sleep as well," Erik told him, strangling a yawn.

"Not as much as you do," Charles said softly, dragging Erik into the bedroom. "Now, get out of those jeans, get under the sheets and get some sleep. I'll make sure we're up in plenty time to get things done."

Erik was halfway there already, shoving his jeans down, stumbling out of them, not caring how stupid he might look. He fell onto the bed, bouncing up and down a little, sniggering because Charles had already pulled the sheet away to make way for him.

He barely felt the sheet being pulled up over his shoulders, and tugged down around them. All he knew was he had nothing to worry about.

\---♦♦♦---♦♦♦---

Erik woke up to the soft drone of Charles' voice.

He smiled to himself when he realized who Charles was talking to.

"No, Raven, I know it won't be a bloody walk in the park," Charles answered, fond exasperation evident in his voice.

Erik rolled over and rubbed his face against the pillow. He checked his watch and realized he had plenty of time. Taking a deep breath he allowed himself a small smile. After such a long time travelling, looking for leads and relics that might lead him in the right direction, it felt fantastic being able to just relax and get some real rest.

It didn't exactly hurt either, that Charles' bed was comfortable, smelt fantastic and while he had an apartment in his own name in New York, Erik often felt more at home in Charles' messy two bedroom one. Erik did not delve too deeply into that thought, because he knew perfectly well that the reason for that was not so much the place as the company.

Rolling onto his back, he dozed lightly for a while. Memories drifted through his mind and he did nothing to hide his smile as he recalled, a good ten years earlier, how he had met a young student, barely past his 17th birthday, who half of his fellow students found absolutely annoying, while the other half spoke of nothing but the chances of bedding him. 

Erik had scoffed at them, both groups, though he had met Charles at a lecture and found him a little droll. Considering that it turned out he had caught Charles on an off day, where he was preoccupied with other things, he had soon learned that there was a lot more to the rich brat than first met the eye.

"I'm almost afraid to ask," Charles said with a laugh. "Normally, you smiling, does not bode well."

"Whatever do you mean?" Erik asked sweetly, only grinning wider but still not bothering to open his eyes.

"You smiling is mostly a prelude to trouble," Charles said, mock seriously.

"Is not," Erik argued good naturedly.

"Is too," Charles said with a snort, his voice coming closer and the mattress dipping as he sat down next to Erik.

Erik could feel the heat at his waist where Charles was now seated. "Name one time where that was the case," he invited.

"Oh, there are so many," Charles said with a laugh, resting a hand on Erik's chest. "There was three years ago, Raven's birthday," he continued.

"That's not true," Erik argued, opening his eyes, looking up at Charles. His friend looked so very much at ease, but Erik could tell he was looking forward to their little adventure.

"You spent half the evening smiling in that deranged way of yours at Azazel, and that night ended in explosions and tears," Charles argued, "literally, I might add."

"I told you he was trouble," Erik said, not even bothering to get his hackles up over this. Charles might joke about it, but that night had been pretty harrowing. If, in hindsight, pretty fucking funny.

"You didn't know!" Charles said, laughing.

"No, but I was right, wasn't I?" Erik said, poking a finger into Charles' waist.

Charles nearly jumped off the bed, as ticklish as he always was. Something Erik was too proud to use against him, either.

"You had no way of knowing he worked for Shaw, for all we knew he was just a friend of Raven's," Charles replied, sitting back down, but watching Erik like a hawk.

"He was a hell of a scumbag, making friends with your sister, just to get to the two old gaelic rings you had in the family vault," Erik said quietly.

Charles sighed deeply, his mirth dimming more than a little. "Yeah, I hate the fact that Shaw took our rivalry to my doorstep and beyond."

"After the shit he pulled against my family," Erik ground out, anger simmering in the pit of his stomach, "I'm not surprised."

Charles slid a hand down to rest on Erik's midriff. "I know," he said quietly, "but please try to rise above it. Don't let him drag you down to his level."

Erik grumbled, but nodded. He would probably have been a murderer if it had not been for Charles' influence. As it was now, he made sure to destroy Shaw's plans whenever the hell he could. With heartfelt glee.

"You're projecting," Charles said with a wink, but he had trouble keeping his laughter contained. "I know how you deal with Shaw these days, Erik. While I, of course, wish you would eventually find peace, I will not stand in your way, but always be at your side all the way."

"I've found peace," Erik said, baring his teeth in a wide grin.

Charles winced. "A very warped peace, darling." He took a deep breath and patted Erik's chest, his hand a warm presence against Erik's thin shirt.

"But more than I'd ever expected to find," Erik admitted in a moment of softness. He watched Charles flush with contented happiness and wondered if he would ever lose it, lose his calm and lose Charles.

"Never, my friend," Charles promised him solemnly.

Erik put his hand on top of Charles' and could not help but wonder, how much else was bleeding through. He was always less careful with his emotions when he had just woken up, and...

The landline rang and Charles gave him an apologetic look, retracting his hand to stand and return to the living room for the phone.

Erik closed his eyes again, leaving his hand where it was, the phantom feeling of Charles' hand still there, under his.


	3. Chapter 3

"We'll be going to Buenos Aires first, on to Cuzco in Peru," Charles listed. He was walking through the airport in front of Erik, attention fully focused on his tablet. He was busy pulling up all the information that Erik knew he'd put together in no time while Erik had been crashed out on the bed.

Erik loved travelling with Charles for many reasons. The company was fantastic, but quite frankly, it was a joy to just let go and have Charles plan it all. He tightened his hand on Charles' shoulder, leading him around a couple of tourist groups. Without Charles even noticing.

"Then we head by car, and yes, I've made sure to rent a good, four wheel drive one," Charles continued, still not looking up. "It should meet with even your standards."

Erik just grinned and squeezed Charles' shoulder.

Getting through security wasn't too hard. Erik had long since made sure that whatever he'd need at the end of the flight, he'd buy. He wasn't stupid enough to bring weapons aboard to only have airport security go bat shit crazy.

"We could have taken your jet," Erik said, opening the old argument. More out of habit than anything else.

"Raven's using it this weekend and you know it's just for the company, which she runs," Charles told him, the usual answer as well.

"But we could have brought whatever we wanted," Erik whined.

"You know we really couldn't, we'd have to try and get it _out_ of the bloody airport at the end as well." Charles plotted in a few other things on the tablet. "There, I've made sure there'll be ...tools for you when we get there."

"The usual kit?" Erik asked.

"Of course," Charles said evenly.

Erik hummed happily. For all the shit that Charles gave him about his vendetta against Shaw, he was the mastermind behind many of their jaunts together. Hell, it happened that Erik would be stuck in the middle of nowhere, no transportation, no protection - one call on the satellite phone Charles had made sure he always had on him and Erik would be safe in the knowledge that help was on its way. The amount of times Charles or Raven had taken over and made arrangements for Erik's... escapes were too numerous to count.

And Erik would not have it any other way. He kept his hand on Charles' shoulder, smiling softly to himself.

"I am glad to have been of help over the years," Charles said with a small laugh, still working away on the tablet.

"You know it's been more than that," Erik replied, pushing and prodding Charles until he could sit down close to their gate.

"Is it, now?" Charles teased, looking at Erik sideways.

"Sarcasm does not become you, Professor Xavier," Erik snorted, flicking at Charles' earlobe.

"Nag," Charles said, twisting to the side to avoid the abuse.

"Whiny brat," Erik retorted. He looked up and noticed that quite a few people were staring at them. Erik just grinned and focused on Charles again.

_'Some of them are thinking we're too old for this behavior,'_ Charles projected at him. _'Some… oooh, some of them think we make a hot couple and… have some pretty dirty fantasies.'_ And Charles flushed red.

Erik gave him a searching look. He rarely let himself look for indications that Charles might like dirty ideas involving the two of them, because in reality? He feared realizing that Charles would find the idea… Well, Charles would never be disgusted by it, but as long as Erik didn't know for sure that Charles wasn't interested, he could imagine, occasionally, that he might be.

"Erik?" Charles asked quietly, almost a little unsure.

"Sorry, woolgathering," Erik said quickly, shutting those thoughts down.

Charles turned his head and stared at him, unreadable expression on his face. "Ah, okay. Erm…" he shook his head as if to clear it. "Right, we'll be in Cuzco late in the afternoon and I've made sure there's a hotel room there for us, so we'll start out tomorrow morning, well rested."

Erik nodded.

Charles dug into his backpack after handing Erik the tablet to hold. Erik waited patiently, trying not to wonder what people around them were thinking. It would not be the first time Charles and he had been mistaken for a couple. Hell, Raven had thought they were doing the dirty years ago, just after they'd met. Then again, Charles had been 17, Raven 15 - a young girl with a hell of an imagination - and Erik recalled how much Charles had flushed at her questions.

To this date, he had never managed to get Charles to tell him just what Raven had thought they got up to during their late night study session. And Raven was as tight-lipped as ever.

Not to mention a little disappointed, but Erik had no way of ever proving that. These days she seemed to see Erik as a brother on level with Charles, and Erik was perfectly fine with that. She was a lovely girl and Erik had no siblings - so being more or less adopted by the Xavier siblings as an older brother had been absolutely perfect for a displaced German-Polish kid, who had come to the US to study archaeology and ancient history. Never mind the fact that he'd ended up travelling all over the damned world trying to find artifacts for various museums. Funded by aforementioned wealthy brat of a friend.

"Raven'll have some information about our further trip from Cuzco by the time we get to the hotel," Charles said quietly. "I'm not trying to be paranoid, but I think we should be careful about letting anyone see the jade coin," he added.

"I know." Neither of them voiced their worries that Shaw might go after it as well. Eternal life had always been one of Shaw's main interests, and Erik for one would do his level best to destroy any plans Shaw might have that would prolong his life. Not just for his own sake, but no one really needed an immortal maniac, craving world domination.

\---♦♦♦---♦♦♦---

Erik looked up from the battered copy of Dune, wondering why one of the flight attendants was giving him a weird look. Then he realized she was eyeing Charles even more so. Turning his head, he looked down at Charles, who was slumped against his side, drooling on his shoulder. One arm was slung over his own lap, the other, the other hooked under Erik's arm - obviously meant to keep him in place. Not that Erik was going anywhere.

He looked back up at the attendant and smirked at her, causing her to flush lightly with embarrassment. Just because Charles wasn't his boyfriend it didn't mean Erik wouldn't leave people thinking so, because he was pretty sure the young lady thought they were adorable, considering the shy smile she gave him.

Then again, it was more than possible, that she simply thought Charles was cute. More often than not, that would be the case. Charles seemed to come across to most people as an adorable, if bumbling young man. Erik, of course, knew better. He had seen sides of Charles that no one else ever had, not even Raven. Well, there were things you didn't share with your sister.

Actually, there were many things Charles would never dream of sharing with Raven, and Erik had probably witnessed most of them. Considering some of the drunken shenanigans they had gotten up to back when they had first met? Erik allowed himself a small smile, staring without seeing at the pages of his book.

There were plenty of nights that Erik had only vague recollections of. More than a few of those had ended with them being called to various official offices around campus just to be ripped a new one, told they were too old for whatever it was they'd done at the time. Quite frankly, Erik thought, eventually, they had simply been slapped with every accusation possible because if Lehnsherr and Xavier had been drunk? They wouldn't be remembering much the next day anyway.

May as well let them take the fall.

It had also been one early event like that, that Erik had realized just what Charles could do. Actually, it had been on the night they had met for real. Erik's roommate at the time had insisted on Erik joining them at the local bar. Erik had given in and there he had witnessed the idiot, Robert something, trying to bully a smaller guy who, and Erik had always been honest with himself about this, had been gorgeous and Erik had every intention of hitting that. Of course it was hard chatting up someone one's roommate had tried to ridicule in public.

That would have been another reason for Erik disliking Robert so much. Then again, if Erik _had_ gone for Charles that night, they probably would not have ended up at the dusty chess board in the corner, drinking scotch (Charles' tab), talking about Europe (Erik's tales mixed with Charles' memories of London from a few years earlier).

In the run of the conversation, Erik had realized that even smashed, Charles played a mean game of chess. That was about the last he had ever remembered from that night, until the next morning, when he'd woken up in Charles' apartment, on Charles' couch. An apartment which the rich brat had all to himself, no roommate who insisted on dragging a new girl home to have sex with five days out of the week's seven.

Really, Erik had soon learned Charles was Robert's exact opposite and meeting Charles had probably been the best thing that had ever happened to him. Not to mention, two days later, Erik was sharing Charles' roomy apartment instead of living his life in a small room shared with an exceptionally stupid human.

The morning after the night they had met, after Erik had rolled off the couch and hit the floor rather hard, they had set out to find breakfast, then had been called to the dean's office.

It seemed someone had stripped Robert and his friends and trapped them on a rooftop. The door up had been fused to the frame.

Erik had felt distinctly ill at ease - and not just because he had been hung over. He was normally so careful about using his powers around others and this day…

Then Charles had smiled sweetly at the dean and they had merely been told to act civilly toward their fellow students - and to not imbibe too much alcohol.

It wasn’t until Erik caught Charles rubbing two fingers inconspicuously against his temple, that he began wondering if there might be more to Charles than just a brilliant mind and a pretty face.

A thought that had made Charles turn to him outside the dean's door, beaming at him. Then he'd told Erik, in his mind, that he was like Erik and that Erik shouldn't worry. None of the assholes from the previous night would remember what Erik had done to the door.

Erik had realized that one, Charles would have been one scary badass, if he hadn't had such high morals (which he did tend to bend when it came to protecting Erik). And two, he was no longer alone. With his powers, with his feeling of being different.

In all ways that counted, Charles had been the best thing to ever happen to him.

Erik turned his head again, looking at Charles and he could not help but smile softly as he watched Charles twitch in his sleep, mumbling gibberish against Erik's shoulder. He pushed a lock of hair away from Charles' face before finally settling down to read his book.


	4. Chapter 4

Erik sat down his bag on one of the beds, pulling out a few maps, his laptop and set that and Charles' tablet up for recharging. The rest of their gear, he repacked, keeping only what they needed in the morning available.

"Charles," he called out, wondering what was taking him so long in the bathroom.

The toilet flushed and a moment later, the door was pushed open, revealing a tired looking Charles.

"I hate flying," he said, walking over to sit on the bed. He let himself fall back, eyes closed, then bent his arm to put it over his face. "I hate the press of everyone's minds."

"Could have solved that by taking the jet," Erik joked, while he went to the bathroom, grabbed a towel and wet it in the sink. He came back into the bedroom and sat down next to Charles, careful to not jostle him. He folded the towel and gently lifted Charles' arm away, replacing it with the cool cloth.

Charles groaned deeply and Erik took a long, slow breath, making sure to keep any reaction to that noise from his surface thoughts. "Easy," he told Charles. "You're not normally this bad after a flight."

Charles sighed deeply. "You know I hate sleeping close to other people because it's next to impossible to shield when I sleep." He lifted his hand and squeezed the one Erik was holding the towel in place with. And kept it there. "When I'm sleeping, yes, I shield, but stuff gets through - makes for weird ass dreams sometimes."

"I could have kept you awake," Erik admitted. He had known this, he just had never seen Charles this drained by it. It made him feel a little guilty.

"Don't feel bad about it," Charles huffed out a small laugh.

Erik watched his firm lips and was caught by the sight, just for a moment. "Well, I'm your friend, I should be helping you."

"You were, trust me," Charles said, pushing at Erik's hand to allow him to see underneath the towel. "It would have been worse if you _hadn't_ been there. It's why I was holding on tightly to you in my sleep," he said, apologetically.

"You know it's alright," Erik told him, giving Charles a small smile.

"Even the drool on your shirt?" Charles asked, as per usual bad at hiding his appreciation for Erik.

Erik tugged the towel back down over Charles' eyes. "Even the drool on the shirt," he agreed. "It'll wash off."

"Unlike the blood I got on your nice white shirt at that big shindig at the university," Charles said with a snigger.

"Don't… bring that up," Erik said, strangling a laugh. "Really, Charles."

_'But that night was so much fun!_

Erik shook his head with a soft smile. "Rest, Charles. We've got time - Raven's not going to call for a few more hours."

"Mmmm," Charles agreed, his body finally relaxing on the bed.

Erik twisted his hand to the side when he could tell Charles was falling asleep. To cup the side of Charles' face. That night had been amazing, well, what he could remember of it. The morning, however, had been a mixed blessing. He'd woken up, wearing only his boxers, wrapped around Charles. No memory of the how or why, or what the hell they had gotten up to, but the disgusting feel of dried come in his boxers had been pretty telltale.

And he'd chickened out. He had extracted himself from Charles' bed, had gone into the bathroom to clean himself up and then proceeded to make them breakfast. After pushing down the memory of how good it had felt to wake up plastered against Charles' sleep-warm skin… because Erik was a coward. If Charles recalled none of it either, so be it. Erik was still afraid to let one night's pleasure destroy the best friendship he had ever had.

Rousing himself, Erik finally extracted his hand from underneath Charles', getting to his feet to make sure the rest of their gear was ready for them to leave whenever Raven supplied them with the last of the information Charles had asked of her.

He detoured around Charles' bed afterwards, pulling the sheet up over him. Although it wasn't cold, he wanted Charles to be comfortable. He allowed himself one last look at Charles' sleeping form, then turned to put his bag on the floor, before dropping down onto his own bed for a little rest as well.

\---♦♦♦---♦♦♦---

"Rise and shine, sleeping beauty."

"Fuck off," Erik grumbled, rolling over onto his front, burying his face in his arms.

"Grumpy bastard," Charles said with a laugh. "Get up, take a shower - I've ordered dinner and it's being brought up in twenty or so minutes."

Erik yawned, rolling back onto his back. He looked up at Charles who looked disgustingly bright eyed and awake. "Well, you're forgiven, wining and dining will get you pretty far."

"You always were easy," Charles said with a snort, sitting down next to Erik.

"Yup, easy, that's me," Erik agreed, stretching his hands above his head, stretching his body until his spine popped in several places. He looked up at Charles, catching him with a strange look on his face.

"Everything alright?" Erik asked, instantly awake, sitting up.

Charles laughed out loud. "Yeah, everything's fine. Raven texted me, she'll call us later. First, we eat," Charles said, standing and returning to his own bed. "Go ahead, take a shower. Where we're going, we won't have such luxuries."

Erik grinned. "I know, please remember that you're the spoiled brat, not me."

"I think you've been spoiled plenty since we met," Charles argued good-naturedly.

"By you," Erik said with a laugh. "You're the one who insisted on me moving in with you, back at Uni."

"Little did I know the upheaval it would bring to my world," Charles said, theatrically.

"Oh shut up," Erik snorted. "You liked it."

"Reveled in it," Charles agreed easily.

Erik rolled off the bed, landing on his feet. "Right, shower, then food. Good thinking, Batman."

\---♦♦♦---♦♦♦---

"Fantastic choice of food," Erik said, falling back on the bed, feeling full enough to burst. "You always were good at spotting the best places."

"Mmm," Charles agreed, obviously too full to reply, conked out on the other bed, in a similar food coma.

"You remember that small place, Vietnamese kitchen? Around the corner from the Uni?" Erik asked, closing his eyes.

"I remember eating their takeaway food cold some of the mornings after many an insane pub crawl," Charles said, voice a little distant, dreamily.

"Oh man, yeah," Erik said, laughing lightly. Some of those mornings had been pretty magnificent. Magnificent hangovers, magnificent movie marathons in front of the TV, just pigging out all day.

"We need to do that again," Charles muttered.

"We should, when we get back. When we've foiled Shaw's plans and made the world a better place," Erik agreed.

Charles laughed softly. "Yeah, and once we've found the City of the White Moon…," he trailed off. "Just imagine, Erik. If we could find this place… the history books would have to be re-written. I don't even know what to search for afterwards," he admitted.

"Atlantis?" Erik joked.

"Now, Atlantis might just be a tad bit too ambitious," Charles said, laughing out loud. "You know I'm not a good swimmer."

"I am, and you know I would never let you drown," Erik said, sobering.

"I know," Charles said quietly. "I know."

\---♦♦♦---♦♦♦---

"Oh man, the roads here are bad," Charles shouted over the sound of the engine, the rattling of the four wheeler as they drove along a narrow trail, barely wide enough for the car.

Of course, he'd already told Erik he drove like shit more than once, but Erik loved this. Loved the rough terrain, enjoyed using his power to keep the car as level as possible.

Erik could feel Charles' enjoyment in his mind as well. Not as actual thoughts, but as a thrumming of emotion, of a state of mind. Charles' mild exasperation was drowned out by his joy at Erik enjoying himself, of feeling the surge of Erik's power so much in harmony with their vehicle.

Like sex.

The thought came out of nowhere and Erik clamped down on it without conscious thought. He wasn't supposed to slip like that. He looked at Charles out the corner of his eye, and the other man didn't seem any different, though there was a look of guilt on his face. Then it was gone and Erik wondered if he'd seen wrong.

Charles focused on the tablet in his hand, hanging onto the car with the other. "According to Raven, we'll have to go a good two more hours in this direction to get to the coordinates etched into the coin."

"And we're sure it's coordinates?" Erik asked. Just for the sake of asking. For the sake of covering up.

"Well, Raven says so, Hank says so. I'm not one to argue with them," Charles said with a laugh.

"They've proven themselves right enough times in the past," Erik admitted. And they had. It had been amazing what Charles' kid sister could dig out of ancient texts and writings. Erik was good, Hank was good, Charles was fucking brilliant and Raven was right up there with him.

Charles laughed out loud. "Stop projecting, Erik. And never ever tell her that, because I'll never hear the end of it, and she won't give it a rest until she gets a raise."

"She's dragged both our asses out of trouble often enough," Erik admitted, wrenching the steering wheel to the side to avoid a protruding tree stump.

Charles agreed silently and Erik was left in companionable silence, driving at the usual insane speed.


	5. Chapter 5

Erik looked up at the nine feet tall stone pillar, almost completely covered by green leaves. Wielding the machete Charles had so kindly made sure was in their kit, he grinned widely. He didn't miss the roll of the eyes this earned him from Charles.

"Come on, you only bring me along to act as the muscle to your brain," Erik said with a wink, levitating the blade up to the top of the pillar, sending it spinning until it went too fast to see the actual metal. Then he pushed it close to the stone, watching it shred the greenery into small pieces, flying all over the place.

"It's always a joy to see you use your powers," Charles said. He was leaning against one of the trees, waiting for Erik to do his work. "I don't even read your mind, but I can almost taste the swirl of colors."

"Are you getting high from me using my powers?" Erik asked, pulling the machete away from the stone for a moment, blade still whirling. He shot Charles a look. "Seriously."

"It's very groovy," Charles confided, a small smile playing on his lips.

"Groovy, Charles? Really?" Erik shook his head and turned back to what he was doing.

"It's the only way I can describe it to you," Charles said, not sounding remotely embarrassed.

"Well, at least Raven has long since convinced you to dress less like a sixty year old professor," Erik taunted, "and more like your age. I guess we'll have to settle for bringing your dress style up to date if we can't do anything about your old fashioned speech pattern."

"That wasn't her, that was your doing," Charles said quietly, almost too quiet for Erik to hear.

Halting the blade abruptly, Erik turned his head and stared at Charles. Charles, whose cheeks were flushed. It could be the heat but… This time Charles was a little too slow in hiding his emotions and Erik allowed himself a slowly widening predatory grin.

Charles' expression turned determined and he gestured at the pillar. "You need to remove more if we're to make out what the writing on it is."

"Uh-huh," Erik agreed, giving Charles one last look. He turned back to his task and set about cleaning the pillar as well as he could. All the while he had to wonder if maybe he had been wrong, for a few years, now. Maybe Charles wouldn't be opposed to Erik making advances. It was worth investigating… later. They had a ticking clock against them. Of course, having the jade coin gave them the upper hand. If they were lucky, Shaw didn't know where they were or what leads they were following.

Of course, Shaw had long since proved that he would occasionally pop up when Erik needed it the least. And it never ended well. He had the scars to prove it. Hell, even Charles had a few from their past run-ins.

Finally Erik had removed enough of the foliage to please Charles, who stepped up next to him, studying the carvings. Erik wasn't as good as Charles when it came to deciphering ancient writings, but he had an eye for detail and enough knowledge to know what to focus on.

"This," Charles said quietly, "is a pictogram referencing a maschu - a bat - and this is Takiy, sing."

"Bats don't sing," Erik muttered, running his gaze over the top carvings, well above Charles' head.

"They screech, they use sonar," Charles agreed. "Rub," he then said.

Erik stopped what he was doing, blinking, his mind going blank for a moment. Then he realized Charles was holding up a sheet of rubbing paper. "Which part?" he asked, keeping his voice steady.

Charles turned his head a little and Erik realized that the little bastard was smirking. Well, if that was how Charles wanted it? Who was Erik to deny him?

Charles indicated the lines above his head and Erik did not, as he would normally, wait for Charles to step aside. He just leaned in over him, front plastered to Charles' back.

There were no complaints from Charles, who just seemed to be studying some of the pictograms at his eye level with intense focus. However, Erik could feel and hear his breathing speeding up. Erik finished rubbing a copy of the area Charles had asked for. Before taking a step back, he put his mouth next to Charles' ear, taking a chance long overdue. "We're having a talk about this when we get back to civilization," he said, making sure to keep his mind open enough for Charles to know that Erik was not brushing him off, just… postponing it.

"There seems to be a narrow trail beyond the pillar," Erik continued, stepping back and to the side, allowing Charles a little time to catch his breath. He wanted Charles to be absolutely sure about risking their easy friendship. While Erik was on the edge of just saying fuck it and going for it, he had to wonder why Charles hadn't acted on it earlier.

Possibly for the same reason Erik hadn't, but then again, why now? They had been on this sort of adventure before, been living in each others' pockets for years.

"Let Raven know where we're parked," Charles said, taking out a fresh sheet of rubbing paper, still focused on the pillar. He would be exchanging the paper for a camera shortly, but he had always preferred the old fashioned way first. He was also very much not looking at Erik.

"Do you want the GPS tracker on?" Erik asked, opening the car, pulling out a box with a variety of small gadgets. He rolled his eyes at the logo on the front. "How the hell do you get Stark to hand all his little newly developed gizmos over to us?" Erik asked, locating the GPS tracker and activating it to get their precise location before attaching it underneath the dashboard.

"It's not _all_ his gizmos," Charles replied, a small laugh escaping him. "And I do have to write up a report on the ones we use when we get back. He likes his inventions field tested."

"I'm sure that's why," Erik said, not quite managing to keep his voice even. He liked the guy, it was just…

"Contrary to popular belief, Erik," Charles called back, "not everyone is trying to get into my pants." There was a moment of silence, then Charles came over to the car to put away the rubbings, stowing them away in the backpack he'd be carrying. "And for it to work, I'd have to be interested," Charles added, holding Erik's gaze a moment longer than was strictly necessary. "Besides," Charles added with a wink, "I have it from a trustworthy source, that Tony would just as soon go for your pants as mine."

"I've already got a rich brat," Erik said without thinking first. "Why would I want another one?"

"You do, don't you?" Charles said, the teasing gone from his voice.

"One's enough," Erik said roughly, turning away to check his own backpack. Bottled water, purification tablets and protein bars.

Charles was quiet behind him for a moment. "Did you send Raven the coordinates?"

"Yeah, and the tracker's on," Erik said, finally standing up and turning around, feeling perfectly in control until he saw Charles' smile. One he was unsure if he had ever seen before. "Not that we'll need it," he finished lamely. He would be able to get them back to the car merely by focusing on the metal of it.

Charles nodded, still smiling that small weird smile. "I just like the extra back-up."

Erik watched as Charles went through the box of gadgets and picked out a handful of them. Erik didn't even know what half of them did, but Charles seemed to know what he was doing.

Charles mostly did. Erik had witnessed him bullshit his way out of many a situation in the past, cocksure. And Charles was a formidable man, when he had his ducks in a row, facing a task head on, secure in his knowledge and research. Erik wasn't afraid to admit that that was the Charles he really had the hots for. Others might find him bordering on arrogant, but Erik had long since learned how that brilliant brain worked.

Sure, Charles _could_ be arrogant at times, but not nearly as much as other people tended to think.

Charles was checking his tablet, hooked up to the satellite phone. "Raven's sent us some satellite photos. And judging from the quality, we're not talking Google Map images here," he joked.

"She hack a military satellite again?" Erik asked, only half in jest.

"I'm hoping she asked Tony to use one of the Stark satellites, because that at least would be legal," Charles said with a sigh. "Well, too late to worry about that. There's a darker area around two-three miles ahead. I'm not sure what it is, but it's a higher elevation than our current position."

Erik gestured with his right hand, the machete hanging in mid air. "From what I can tell, the path is barely that," he said, trying to get a good look at the animal trail ahead of them.

"Don't hold back on my account," Charles said with a grin. "It's always lovely watching you work."

Erik rolled his eyes. "I'm always the one who ends up doing the grunt work, huh?"

"You wouldn't have it any other way," Charles said with a wink, shouldering his backpack while Erik did the same. "Let's go, my friend, we've got distance to cover and not that much daylight in which to do so."

Erik flicked his hand and the machete began spinning again, though this time slower. He walked around the pillar and forward. "Let me know if we're deviating from the direction you want to go in," he told Charles over his shoulder.

They walked on in companionable silence, only occasionally broken by Charles pointing something out to Erik. It wasn't a bad kind of silence, but as always, it gave Erik far too much time to wallow in memories and thoughts.


	6. Chapter 6

In the early days of their acquaintance, Erik had done what he could to keep Charles at a distance. Or rather, he had intended to. Of course, Charles being Charles and expecting Erik to just jump into a friendship with both feet first, had pushed relentlessly for more.

And Erik had caved like a badly stacked house of cards.

For all his attempts at keeping Charles as a mere acquaintance, he had more or less been adopted by the Xavier siblings and he'd not only learned to live with it, but like it, love it and consider himself blessed. His parents, had they been alive, would have approved of the tight almost family like unit the three of them had formed. Four, once Hank had come along.

Erik also wanted to think that his mother would have liked Charles as something more for her son as well. She would have doted on Charles and probably given Erik hell for not making an honest man of him yet.

"Erik."

Erik stopped chopping his way through the undergrowth and brought the machete back to his hand, wiping it off as he turned to Charles.

"Just a second." Charles was consulting one of the rubbings he had done. Then checked the camera he was carrying as well. "Erik, is there anything off to our right that might be a passage of some kind?"

"If you can call a trail from whatever critters prowl the forest floor a 'passage', yeah," Erik said. "Why?"

"Some of the writing speaks of a passage into the hillside, so it's more something like that, we're looking for," Charles said.

Erik sheathed the machete and handed it to Charles. "Hang on a second." Closing his eyes, he focused on the area around them, slowly stretching his power out to feel metallic components in the soil, familiarizing himself with the feel of it.

Reaching out further, he could feel the ground in the mentioned direction inclining gradually. It was not the easiest thing for him to do and the further he stretched out, the less he could keep the connection.

"Allow me," Charles said quietly.

Erik opened his eyes and found Charles right in front of him, rubbings and machete on the ground. He was holding out a hand towards Erik's head, a questioning look. Erik took a deep breath and nodded.

Expecting the usual piggybacking that he and Charles had done so many times to train and push Erik's powers, he almost ended up on his ass when Charles' mind flooded his, like water cascading between rocks, over, around…

Erik found himself grounded again, Charles steadying him with an apologetic expression on his face and a litany of _'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,'_ going through his head.

"What the hell?" Erik said, staring at Charles.

"I normally hold back when we do this," Charles said.

"That's news," Erik said, genuinely surprised. "What changed?"

"You're not blocking me and I'm not afraid of…" Charles trailed off, face flushed, but he didn't break eye contact with Erik.

"It's amazing," Erik said, reveling in still being able to feel Charles in his mind. He felt Charles' presence retreat a little, but the connection was still strong. And he knew he'd been shielding his deeper thoughts from Charles, but in turn, it had meant missing out on this.

"Easy," Charles said with a small laugh. "I still think I should keep it a bit lower, at least until we've had a nice, long talk why and what you've been shielding from me."

"Charles," Erik began, looking down at Charles, who was close enough for Erik to feel the heat from his body all the way down his front.

"Not here, not now. When we've got the time for it," Charles told him. "Let's do this first."

Erik nodded in agreement. "Later." Closing his eyes again, he let his power mingle with Charles', felt it stretch out farther than he could have done on his own.

The composition of the soil tasted different in his mind now. More metallic and Erik realized it had to be Charles amplifying his powers, making the sense of metal so much stronger.

He took a deep breath, then stuttered on the next one. A void. "Charles."

_'I see it,'_ Charles replied in his mind.

"Off the track, a good mile off," Erik said, opening his eyes again, staring down into Charles' eyes as the other man slowly withdrew his consciousness from Erik's. Erik almost followed when Charles took a step back as well, breaking their physical contact.

"That was a bit intense," Charles said lamely.

Erik rolled his eyes. "Suave, Charles, suave."

Charles just grinned and slapped his arm. He picked his rubbings and the machete up again, handing the latter to Erik. "You know where we're going," he said.

"I know," Erik said, not even fighting his grin. It was strange, but amazing not having to keep a watchful eye on his attraction to Charles.

"This is ridiculous," Charles said, with a shake of the head.

Erik agreed and turned around, unsheathing the machete and getting to work on the undergrowth.

This time it was a hell of a lot harder to get through. There was no path as such, and mother nature was fighting them every few steps. At least until the ground began to get steeper, and Erik found the trees growing farther apart.

"It's here somewhere," Erik finally said. He could feel the void of a tunnel ahead of them, but no entrance.

"There's bound to be an entrance around here," Charles said, looking around.

"I can't fully pinpoint where it starts, but it's approximately over there," Erik said, pointing off to the right. "Like a dead end."

Charles went over to the spot, turning his head to ask if he was in the right place.

"That's it, yeah." Erik pushed the machete over, careful not to get the blade too close to Charles. Cutting away the green stems and leaves, he found nothing but dirt and rock face underneath.

Charles brushed his hands over the surface, dislodging grit and dirt as he went.

"I can't see anything but rock underneath," Erik said, working alongside him.

"I don't know. There's bound to be something written in the rock somewhere, but…" Charles trailed off, and they both looked where his hand suddenly slipped downward, a square rock piece sinking into the rock. There was a grinding noise and over the years, Erik had learned to fear and respect that noise. He'd been trapped enough times to have learned his lesson.

He grabbed Charles and threw the both of them back and away, landing on the ground. He made sure to land with Charles underneath him, to protect him from any traps they might have activated.

"I would say it's a bit sudden, but it's really not?" Charles said, a little muffled from where his face was squashed against Erik's shoulder.

Erik did not answer, just kept his senses focused on any traps around them.

Charles' hand on his hip, pulled Erik back to the situation. He could feel the hot skin where it was pressed against his, just above the waistband where his shirt had slipped up. Pushing himself up and off Charles, he offered him a hand up. "Sorry, but I've kinda gotten used to just reacting when I hear a noise like that."

"Don't be sorry," Charles said, keeping hold of Erik's hand for a little too long. "Better safe than sorry, right?"

Erik reluctantly pulled his hand away, picking up his hat that he had lost when they had hit the ground. He focused on dusting it off, before putting it back on his head. "I think it was just a door mechanism," he said, just for the sake of saying something.

Charles nodded, and finally turned his back on Erik, who found it easier to breathe now that he wasn't pinned in place by Charles' gaze.

There, in front of them, was a dark, gaping hole leading into the hillside.


	7. Chapter 7

"Into the Hobbit hole," Erik said, stepping inside, having to bend down. He switched the flashlight strapped to his head on, the strong light illuminating the pathway. The walls were not loose soil, but hard packed, looking like they would hold for another millennium.

"I'd have pegged you for the dragon's lair," Charles said with a laugh behind him.

"Nah, too small for a dragon to get through," Erik muttered, moving forward, following the straight and narrow passage.

"And it's more like the cave of the white bat," Charles told him. "It's where this path leads - this being the path of the snake."

Erik stopped dead, Charles walking into him with a muttered curse. "Are there snakes here?" Erik asked, deadly calm, although he could feel his heartbeat going up.

"Well, I can't feel anything but small rodents in the area, but there might be a snake or two," Charles said, hands resting on Erik's shoulders.

"It's stupid, I know," Erik said, grinding it out. It was. Fear was fear, irrational fear could be dealt with.

"It's not stupid," Charles said, sliding his hands down over Erik's arms.

The touch was warm and grounding, and Erik forced himself to breathe easy, to focus on the points of touch.

"I'm glad you know," he said quietly. He'd never told Raven, never told anyone, but Charles had pulled him out of countless nightmares after his first run-in with Shaw after his parents had been killed. And that was one point he was not reliving in his mind right now. He ruthlessly pushed it down. This wasn't the time for it. He couldn't blame the snakes for Shaw using them against him.

Charles did not say anything, just squeezed where he was holding onto Erik.

"Let's go," Erik finally said, feeling more centered. He had to stop those memories from jumping him at inopportune times.

"You're not a robot," Charles said softly from behind him, slipping his hands to Erik's hips instead, giving them another squeeze before he let go. "For which I'm glad." The last was added with a small laugh.

Erik couldn't help the startled laugh escaping him. "Me too. Let's go."

Moving forward, Erik felt the ground rising underneath his feet. Just a slight incline, but definitely moving upward.

"There seems to be plenty of oxygen in here," Erik commented, continuing along the path.

"Ancient cultures knew how to build with that in mind," Charles replied, a hand on Erik's shoulder as they walked. 

Erik appreciated the physical contact, even though he knew it was just as much for Charles' sake as for his own - and for their safety. Erik had not just thrown himself on top of Charles for fun when the mechanism had opened the door. He'd had more than enough encounters with trapdoors, deadly mechanisms that would sling arrows and other lethal shit at you.

They continued walking in silence, and Erik enjoyed it, realizing that although he loved chasing around the world on his own, it was just more fun with Charles there. 

More nerve wracking as well, though. Because now it wasn't only his own life he had to think of, but Charles' as well.

"I'll be alright," Charles mumbled behind him.

Erik shook his head. "I wasn't giving you a free ticket to the inside of my head," he said, though he could find no heat to fuel the words. Charles had always kept out of his mind in the past.

Most of the time, anyway.

"I'm not rooting around in your head, Erik, but when you're worried, you project, you know that," Charles argued.

"I know, I know," Erik admitted, stepping forward, then stopping with Charles walking into him again.

"Really, Erik, give a warning, will you?" Charles grumbled good naturedly.

Erik didn't answer, he angled his head to look down at ground ahead of him.

"Ah, stairs?" Charles asked, trying to look around him.

"Yes," Erik replied, "I can't see how far down they go, but these are definitely stairs - considering the age of this place, in quite good shape too."

"Going down?" Charles asked. As if he was about to turn around now?

"Absolutely," Erik agreed, taking a few steps down. "Watch your step, though. We don't know if all the steps are still intact and stable."

"I will, you mother hen," Charles muttered, before carefully stepping down behind Erik.

Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen. They seemed to just keep walking downward, then the stairs ended on a flat surface. If he hadn't had his hand out to steady himself on the wall, Erik probably wouldn't have noticed that there was an opening on their right.

"Let me guess," Charles said, coming forward to Erik's side now that there was room, "more stairs?"

"Yeah," Erik said. He pulled his jacket a little tighter around his shoulders. "It's getting colder the further down we get."

"We'll be fine for now," Charles said, checking one of the small gadgets he'd brought with him. "It's still warm enough for us, but I'll keep an eye out in case it drops too far."

"I think I'll notice if it gets too cold," Erik said, turning his head to meet Charles' gaze, not particularly sorry when the light from the flashlight made Charles wince.

"No offense, darling, but when you've got a goal you tend to forget ... oh, everything else," Charles said with a raised eyebrow.

"And you're so much better," Erik said with a snort. "The amount of times I've dragged you out of your study and put you to bed because you'd gotten caught up in some research or other."

"Thank you, mother, that's quite enough," Charles growled.

Erik just grinned and nodded at the next set of stairs, this time going upwards. "Shall we?"

"We shall, my friend," Charles agreed.

"I am going to find a nice hotel when this is done," Erik said twenty or so minutes later, "and get a ground floor room."

"Tired of the stairs already?" Charles asked.

"Don't tell me you're not," Erik retorted.

Before Charles could answer, it seemed like Erik's complaints had been heard. They stepped out into a cave, ceiling too high for Erik to see it properly and judge the distance, and dotted with pillars wider than what five or six men could span with their arms. All disappearing into the air, obviously supporting the ceiling.

"It's beautiful," Charles said, voice barely audible.

Erik switched his light off and the cave seemed to become even easier to see. "There's some natural source of light in here," he said, touching the wall at the entrance. His hand came away covered in something that seemed to shine with its own light.

"Some sort of natural algae," Charles commented, holding Erik's hand still with a light grasp of his wrist. He leaned in over it and Erik thought for an insane moment that he was going to lick it, but he just sniffed at it. "Odorless, almost, though there's a light...."

"Metallic scent," Erik finished. "I can feel it - it's not much, but it's there."

"Yeah," Charles agreed, looking up at him, still not letting go.

The heat of warm skin against his own was almost shocking. He hadn't truly noticed how cold it had become around them, and the skin of his arm where the sleeve of his jacket ended had cooled considerably. And Charles had nice, warm hands.

"Looks like we have some exploring to do," Charles finally said, after clearing his throat.

"Uh-huh," Erik said, eyeing the hold Charles still had on him.

Charles grinned and let go, slipping past Erik, brushing closely by him.

"Was there anything else on that stone pillar about this place?" Erik asked, following Charles across the floor. The place was truly huge.

"The pillars actually look like stalactites and stalagmites having fused together at some point," Charles said, running a hand along one of them.

"They're too smooth, especially at the base for that to be the case," Erik argued, reaching out to touch it as well.

"I know," Charles said, with a shake of the head. "But it's not impossible that that is what it was at first - and that whoever carved the passage and made the door only made use of what was already there."

"Charles, even the Aztec...," Erik began.

"I think this is older than the Aztec," Charles interrupted him. "The pillar that led to the passage was Aztec in design and in carvings, but this is far older."

"Charles," Erik called, as he'd walked onwards, coming up on the next, huge pillar. "There are writings on these, but it's like nothing I've ever seen before."

Charles hurried over to him, running his fingers over the carvings. "It's definitely not Aztec," he said, quietly. "Erik, I don't think this exists anywhere but here... I've never seen anything like it."

His voice was rising in volume and Erik could tell just how excited he was. And it would be a hell of a find, no doubt about it. "You brought the camera," Erik said, "let's see if it's as good as Stark claims it is."

Charles just threw him a quick grin and pulled the small camera from the bag. "Let's," he agreed.

For all Erik's griping about Tony, he knew that the sort of hardware he supplied them with was amazing. And of course Charles was right, they did test the gadgets for Stark - and often under pretty harsh conditions. There were things Erik had brought with him on occasion that he had to wonder if Stark had built to withstand nuclear war, because it always came out unscathed on the other side, even if Erik was bleeding and had broken bones.

"Oh, my god, Erik, look at that!" Charles' voice had moved off ahead and Erik hurried to catch up.


	8. Chapter 8

Erik stopped right next to Charles, staring in open disbelief at the display ahead of them. Right at the center of the huge cave sat a thirty feet high statue. "Is that…?" Erik began.

"Not of any known deity," Charles breathed out.

"It looks almost… Indian, maybe a little like Ardhanarishvara," Erik said, watching the large, four armed, split-faced statue. "It's a little creepy how it seems to be looking at us." And he meant it, it was as if the eyes were hollow, staring down at them.

"Yeah, freaky, isn't it?" Charles asked with a grin.

Erik refrained from agreeing out loud, although Charles was right.

He made his way around the massive base of the statue - having lost Charles to the carvings on the front of it. The only reason they had not instantly noticed the statue in its vastness, would be because of the way the pillars were scattered all over the place. They were at a distance to each other that meant at any distance, any angle, they created a vast wall that hid the statue from sight.

The statue seemed to be covered in the same self-illuminating algae that the walls and pillars were - to an even larger extent. It was as if it was glowing brightly. He made his way back to the front of the statue to find Charles still at it.

"This writing is so very different from the ones outside, the ones we found on the pillar," Charles told him, without turning away from it.

Erik went over to him, wondering if he was imagining things or if the statue was actually glowing brighter.

Charles turned around and opened his mouth to say something, but he stopped midway, turning his head up at the statue.

Erik followed his gaze, upwards, until he looked at the face of the statue. The empty hollows of the eyes were no longer black pits. They were shining with an unearthly light.

"Erm, Erik?" Charles said, taking a step back until he backed up against Erik.

"Yes?" Erik said, putting a hand on Charles' waist to steady him, still not taking his eyes off the weird statue.

"Run?" Charles asked, voice low and breathless.

There was a crunching, sliding noise of rock against rock and Erik nodded. "Run," he agreed.

That was about as far as they got. Barely one step out of place, there was no ground under their feet. Erik reacted instinctively, arms around Charles' waist and using his power to latch onto whatever metal might be hidden within the stones, the soil, trying to slow their descent.

They touched down onto hard packed ground, a little harder than Erik would have liked, but because he managed to slow them sufficiently, they were still in one piece, instead of smashed bloody against the ground.

"Jeez," Charles said, unsteady on his feet, clutching at Erik's arms still around him. "That was…"

"Close, yes," Erik agreed.

"I was going to say amazing," Charles said softly, hands warm on Erik's.

Erik flushed a little. "You're a sweet talker," he said gruffly, letting go of Charles.

"It's a compliment, Erik, take it." Charles turned around. There was no light and for a moment, Erik found himself reveling in the lack of visual input, his other senses working harder to track Charles.

And he could feel the heat from Charles' body all along his front, the soft whisper of his breath against his face. Charles cupped his cheek, moved his hand upward and brushed the tips of his fingers against Erik's temple.

Then he switched the light on the lamp that Erik was still wearing around his head. Erik winced at the sudden light, while Charles cursed and whipped his head to the side, blinking furiously as the beam of light had caught him squarely in the face.

"Next time turn your head before doing that," Erik said drily, though he held onto Charles as the man staggered for a moment.

"Fuck, that hurt," Charles muttered, rubbing his eyes furiously.

Erik didn't answer, just turned his head to let the light illuminate the space they were in. It was roughly five by five feet and he couldn't see the room they had fallen from.

"Do you think you can pull us up from here?" Charles asked curiously.

"It's possible I could lift you up high enough," Erik began, but he was interrupted by the sound of stone moving again, somewhere up above.

"Why is it I have a strong distaste for that noise?" Charles asked, head tilted back, hands on Erik's arms. His fingers were digging hard into Erik's arms.

Erik was looking up as well. A drop of water hit his face, then another, and then he heard the roaring noise of water.

"Oh shit," Charles whispered. "Erik?!"

"Yeah?" Erik replied, wondering if this was the one trap they were not getting out of.

"Erik!" Charles' voice drew Erik back from his speculations. "Is there any shift in the soil near us, anything that could be punched through to let us and the water out?"

Erik didn't answer, but he felt Charles' mind soaring through his and his powers were once again cast far and wide.

_**'Below,'**_ their mental voice mixed. _**'There's an underground river.'**_

Erik tore into the ground, feeling and touching every little metallic fragment, amplified by Charles, he curled his power around it, set it all spinning, the ground boiling under them. And not a moment too soon. They were barely falling through the floor before the water reached them. Falling through rushing water, into an even wilder current.

Erik lost his grip on Charles and the double consciousness he had been experiencing was torn apart. He would have lamented the loss had he not been busy trying to stay alive, trying to go with the flow of the wild water. Erik fought to keep his head shielded with his arms as he felt sharp rocks tearing through the leather of his jacket, through the strong denim of his jeans.

He tried to project his thoughts at Charles, but there was no room to think, no room to do anything but react to the wild ride, hoping that Charles would come out on the other side unscathed… wherever the other side might be.

It felt as if it went on forever, and for a little while, Erik had room to wonder if he had been unconscious.

Then the world exploded around him, the pressure of the water letting off and he was in free fall. Hollering loudly, he tried to do as he had done before, tried to slow his own descent, while feeling around for any metal on Charles. His jacket, his jeans, belt buckle…

Unfortunately, being slammed against rocks and spinning through freefall, he couldn't focus enough to get a hold on anything. A moment later, he hit the surface of even more water, though at least this time, it was calm and not trying to kill him.

"Charles!" Erik resurfaced, spat water out, nearly went under again. " _Charles!_ " There was a soft brush of a mind against his, weak, but there.

Erik looked down, into the water and saw the shadow sinking below him. "No!" He swam furiously through the water, grabbing for Charles.

The water was cold further down and became even cooler as he swam like mad to reach Charles. Erik could feel a brush of clothes against the tips of his fingers, and he doubled his efforts, the burn of his muscles ignored, as he closed his fingers around something flesh and _alive_ under a thin layer of clothes.

Erik held on tight, angled his body back toward the surface and swam for the sake of Charles' life.

Reaching the surface, Erik realized they were still in a cave of some sort, nothing but a large lake as far as the eye reached. The walls and ceiling once again seemed to be covered in the luminous algae.

He held Charles to his body, reached around him and touched his neck, trying to find a pulse. It was there, but weak. Erik took a deep breath and used whatever metal there was on Charles's body to keep him afloat, on his back.

Erik pushed himself up by using any ounce of metal in a radius of half a mile. It wasn't much, but enough to keep him steady as he leaned over Charles, trying to check his breathing. Threadbare pulse, check, breathing… none.

Erik inhaled sharply and tried not to panic. He knew what to do. He did, Charles had been very insistent on that. CPR, any sort of first aid. He'd made damn sure that Erik had learned it.

Now would be the time to prove that he could do it. Erik tilted Charles' head back as much as he could, held his nose and put his mouth over Charles'. This was so not how he had imagined doing this! He used the metal in Charles' backpack to push his chest up, while he did the compressions, then back to breathing air into Charles' lungs.


	9. Chapter 9

It felt like forever, before Erik felt the lightest brush of consciousness against his, felt Charles breathing and watched his eyelids flutter, before opening, at the same time as Erik rolled him to the side, held him while Charles coughed and spat water.

"Fuck, Erik," Charles whispered, voice rough.

"You're okay," Erik whispered, holding onto Charles as if he was going to sink if Erik let go of him. "You're okay," he repeated, burying his face against Charles' neck, strangling a sob.

_'I'm okay,'_ Charles agreed softly, his consciousness curling around Erik's, assuring him that Erik had saved him in time.

Erik hadn't been aware that he was crying until Charles reached up to touch his face, wiping a tear at the corner of his eye away. _'I'm okay,'_ Charles repeated, tilting Erik's head to press their lips together.

Erik groaned and for a moment he was lost in the taste of Charles, of Charles clinging to him. Then he broke the kiss, panting for air. "God damn it, Charles, your sense of timing stinks," he growled, pressing his nose against Charles' cheek, breathing in deeply.

"When we get out of here," Charles promised, "when we get back to the hotel, we'll have a shower, sex, shower, sex, then home, then sex, then…"

Erik couldn't help himself, his body shaking as he laughed, part relief and part surprise at Charles' single-mindedness.

"Oh please, like you're not thinking it!" Charles said with a laugh, stealing another quick kiss. "So we're in a cave, we need to get out, let's see if there's an exit somewhere."

"There seems to be a slight current over that way," Erik said, letting go for a moment of Charles with one hand to point in the far direction - opposite of where they had dropped out of the tunnel. Erik looked back up and saw the gaping hole they had fallen from, water still running from it.

"Then that's the direction we're going in," Charles said, re-adjusting his backpack while Erik held onto him, still scared he might slip under.

"Let's get out of here," Erik said, pulling Charles in for a quick kiss, still so damned surprised that he could do this, was allowed to, encouraged even.

"Encouraged doesn't really cover it," Charles said, giving him a lewd grin, licking his lips.

"We need to get out of here," Erik said, "or we'll have sex here and I'm not sure it would be hygienic and we'd probably drown."

Charles laughed out loud, gesturing in the general direction they were going.

The swim was… long. Erik lost track of how long they actually swam, but his arms were aching, his body was aching and he just wanted to get somewhere _dry_ , damn it. Eventually, they reached the wall of the cave and Erik put his hands flat on the rock. "Are you strong enough to boost me again?" Erik asked. "I think there's enough metal in the rock face for me to feel a void if there is a tunnel anywhere."

"I nearly drowned," Charles said drily, coming in next to him, hooking his hand around a protruding rock. "I didn't suffer a head injury."

Erik rolled his eyes. "I'm so sorry for worrying about you," he said sarcastically.

"Erik…." Charles just shot him an overbearing look.

"Asshole," Erik muttered, though with very little heat.

Charles merely chuckled and slipped his hand up to press the tips of two fingers against Erik's temple. Water dripped down along Erik's face from the point he was touching him, and then he lost any connection to his body and its surroundings. Everything was ground down to metal particles, natural deposits and… a sudden lack of metal.

"I think water's rushing through somewhere below us, a little further to your side," Erik finally managed to grind out when Charles pulled his consciousness back. "Is this what it's like for you when you let go?" Erik asked curiously. "So easy to get lost?"

"I'm here to anchor you," Charles said, his touch to Erik's head moved into a caress before he pulled his hand back.

"I know," Erik said, catching Charles' hand, giving it a squeeze before letting go. "There's no guarantee we can hold our breaths for long enough to get out," Erik said quietly.

"Actually," Charles said with a wink, turning his back to Erik. "Left side pocket, there are two little cylinders with mouthpieces attached. I've been dying to try them out in the field, but I haven't used them anywhere but in the pool so far."

Erik raised an eyebrow and did as he was asked, finding exactly what Charles was referring to. "And these are safe?" he asked.

"According to Tony, they will give us fifteen to twenty minutes of air depending on the situation," Charles said, turning back around to take one of them from Erik.

Erik stared at the small device, wondering, not for the first time, how the hell Tony even came up with this shit.

They moved along the wall until Erik stopped Charles. They could feel the current tugging at their feet now, and Erik knew this was it. There didn't seem to be any other way out of the cave and out they had to get.

"The moment you bite around the mouthpiece," Charles explained, taking Erik's breathing device, holding it up to his lips, "you'll release the small valve that opens for the oxygen compound."

Erik put his hand on Charles and held it to the side for a moment, leaning in for one last kiss.

Charles sighed against his mouth, opening up to him and giving as good as he got. Erik couldn't let him pull back at that very moment, he was that lost in the singular touch of mouth against mouth, his hand on Charles' and the water around them cooling his body.

"When we get out," Charles whispered when they finally parted, lifting his hand from Erik's grip to gently push the mouthpiece into Erik's mouth. He did the same for himself and Erik bit into the mouthpiece, making sure to breathe through it instead of his nose.

Erik watched for a moment as Charles sank into the water, and before he could allow the panic of watching the water closing over Charles' head rise, he followed him down. The water was cool and as they swam down, Charles waited for Erik to overtake him, and Erik was glad that the lamp he still had strapped to his head was working underwater. If things kept going this way, he would have to thank Tony - not that he wanted to, but damn it, they would have been in deep shit if it hadn't been for all those weird inventions.

As he passed Charles, he felt the brush of fingers on his neck and he could not help but grin around the mouthpiece.

It took little effort to find the origin of the current. Erik followed the hard pull down to an opening that was approximately two to three times as wide as his shoulders. Turning his head, he caught the indistinct shape of Charles in the water, reached out and brushed his fingers against his.

_'Let's get out of here,'_ Charles said in his mind. ' _And try not to get hurt or sucked to the center of the Earth,'_ he added.

Erik rolled his eyes and pushed his thoughts at Charles about just why he was going to be so damned careful. Why he wanted to get out alive and just what he was going to do to Charles when they were well away from there.

_'Promises, promises,'_ Charles answered, but there was a warm rush of emotions and Erik couldn't help but return the feeling without a second thought.

He was turning into a damned sap already, Erik realized, but he really couldn't bring himself to give a shit.

There were no more words from Charles, but Erik could feel the constant presence of him in the back of his head. For the first time in forever, Erik realized what he had been missing out on over the years, shutting himself off from Charles and now having Charles there, while still respecting Erik's privacy.

The tunnel, unlike the cave, had no natural illumination, so Erik's light was a warped spear of light cutting through the darkness, showing him enough handholds to grab onto so that the current didn't drag him away. And Charles was there with him every step of the way, using his moves to mirror them, constantly being one step ahead of himself by riding along in Erik's mind.

_'Tony once said we'd make a fantastic team,'_ Charles' voice whispered in his mind.

Erik allowed himself a small, mental smile. There was a reason why Tony was a genius.

_'And what am I? Chopped liver?'_ Charles asked in amusement.

_'I'm supposed to act the jealous boyfriend,'_ Erik replied, half in jest, half really meaning it.

_'Well, you're allowed now,'_ Charles replied, heat warming Erik. _'Your feelings for me do explain your constant bickering with Tony, though.'_

Erik refused to think any sort of answer back at Charles for that one. Sure, he was a jealous bastard on the best of days, but he'd been just as pissed at himself for not daring to take the chance.

Light. There was a different source of light up ahead. Erik stopped, held onto a large rock and he could feel the water tugging harder at him. 

Straining for the light source, Erik felt Charles right behind him and they both fought to slow their forward momentum. Erik felt the roughness of the rock tearing at skin and he knew he'd have cuts and bruises when they got out.

Finally, daylight filled his vision as he broke through the surface of a small lake, surrounded by the jungle. The sun wasn't too far from setting, but there was more than enough light to see by. Erik tore the mouthpiece out and fought to draw in the clean air.

Charles surfaced next to him and his reaction seemed to be much the same. Coughing, he laughed out loud, the sound ringing through the air.

"There were a few times where I did wonder if we'd ever make it out of there," Erik admitted, spotting the closest lakeshore.

Behind him, Charles laughed again. "I never doubted your tenacity, my friend," he said.

Erik turned in the water, reaching out to pull Charles in for a hard kiss. "I had my doubts," he repeated, "but we're out now and we're getting out of this damned lake this instant."

Charles nodded, looking more than a little excited about getting back on dry land.

_'I'm not so much excited about dry land as I'm excited about getting one step closer to debauching you,'_ Charles teased in his mind as they began swimming towards the shore.

Erik felt his face heat, but he couldn't agree more. They had been in danger over the years, but he had been worried that this time they might just not make it out alive.

Pulling himself up onto the dry ground, Erik groaned. He was getting to the point where years of physical abuse like this was making his joints ache and his… He lost track of his thoughts as Charles pulled himself up next to him, undid his backpack to drop it on the ground before rolling on top of Erik.

"Hello, my friend, how do you feel about getting an early start?" Charles asked, water dripping from the tip of his nose, from his hair and chin as he leaned over Erik, body warm and heavy on top of him.

"I've created a monster," Erik said with a sense of wonder.

Charles gave him a worried look, still poised over him. "I thought you admitting how you felt to yourself and more or less to me as well, meant you were open for…"

Erik silenced him by hooking a hand behind his head and pulling him in for a bruising kiss. This time there was no danger of drowning and underneath the taste of water he lost himself for a little while. Charles' lips were firmer than he had ever expected, and something rushed through his mind as his tongue brushed against Charles'.

Moaning deeply, Erik rolled them over, holding Charles still while he kissed him long and deep. When he finally pulled back, Charles gasped for air and he could feel the rush of Charles all around him, in his mind, like a wildfire of emotion, a tidal wave of lust Charles had obviously been holding back.

"I'm sorry for having been such a doubting idiot," Erik said quietly, nipping at Charles' mouth, enjoying the feel of Charles' hands moving surely up and down his back, shaping along muscles and bones, squeezing and petting, probably without Charles even thinking about it.

The feel of Charles receded a little, but the presence was there. Like a nice, warm blanket. "I'm sorry if I lost it a little there," Charles said, then shook his head. "And don't be sorry, Erik. I've always known it would happen eventually, but if we weren't both ready for it, it would just end in tears."

Erik grinned. He hadn't felt this light in ages. "You're the smart one," he agreed.

Charles shook his head and pulled Erik down for a long, sweet kiss. "You're not exactly stupid either, but I don't think anyone will ever claim that we're all that emotionally stable - or capable of talking about our feelings."

"Raven would be the first one to agree on that," Erik said with a snort.

"Raven will also be insufferable when she finds out," Charles said with a groan closing his eyes. "She's been saying for years that I should have a go at you, but I kept second guessing us both every time you pushed your feelings down and away. It felt so natural when you did it, like you weren't even aware of it."

"I was," Erik said with a sigh, shivering as the wet clothes clung to his skin. Reluctantly, he rose to his feet, pulling Charles with him. "I was so used to it from the beginning and I was afraid of risking anything we already had."

"We'll take it as slow as you want," Charles said, looking up at him with a soft smile. He was shivering more than a little now as well.

"Like hell we will," Erik said with a laugh. "Like you said yourself, earlier, we're going back to the hotel, we'll have a shower and then we're having sex until we leave tomorrow."

This startled a laugh out of Charles, who slipped his arms around Erik's waist and leaned in against him. "I wouldn't say no to that tub in the hotel bathroom," he admitted. "Steaming hot water and you."

Erik felt like the happiest man alive as he buried his face against the side of Charles' head. He just couldn't help but grin at the absurdity of it all. They'd started out with a treasure hunt and this was where it had gotten them.

"Let's act a little more our age," Erik said, straightening up, steadying Charles when he took a step back. "It won't be warm here during the night and we're quite some distance from the car."

Charles nodded, grabbing his discarded backpack. "Do you need the GPS or can you still feel the metal of it?"

Erik rubbed the back of his neck. He was tired and hungry and as much as he hated to admit it, the boosts Charles had given his power were the root of an oncoming headache.

"We'll use the GPS first," Charles said, still so damned aware of him. 

Erik wondered if he should worry about his _lack_ of worry when it came to the constant presence of Charles' consciousness in the back of his mind.

"I'll back off if you want me to," Charles said softly, pulling the small tracking unit from the backpack before shouldering it. "I'm not reading your thoughts, just your mood and emotions."

"No!" Erik said, startled more than a little by his own vehemence. Reaching out, he righted one of the straps on Charles' shoulder. "I just need to get used to it," he admitted. The only real secret he'd ever kept from Charles was how he felt and that cat was long since out of the bag.

"Take your time," Charles said, catching Erik's hand as Erik pulled it back. "All the time you need."

Erik nodded, incapable of stopping the grin on his face.

"You look like a deranged shark," Charles told him, but there was so much warmth in the way that he was looking at Erik that Erik could find nothing to say in return.

Charles let go of him to activate the small handheld unit and pointed in the direction away from the lake. "Seems we have a bit of walking to do," he said with a shrug.

"Fine by me, as long as there's no rushing water," Erik said with a small laugh. "But I take it we won't get there before it's dark."

Charles shook his head. "No, we've got quite a way to walk - should take us maybe two hours, depending on the undergrowth."

Erik patted the long sheath of the machete strapped to his thigh. A move that only made Charles focus on his crotch instead, a smirk curving his lips. Erik mirrored it. He had definitely created a monster.


	10. Chapter 10

Stumbling through the dark probably wasn't the brightest idea they had ever had, but Erik had been conscious of the car's location for a while and wasn't going to stop. Though they were both tired, neither wanted to be stuck in the jungle for the night.

"I meant to ask you," Erik said, removing another thick part of the undergrowth, "did you get anything off the base of the statue before it pulled the floor out from under us?"

"I did," Charles said with a yawn, his hand hooked into the back of Erik's pants. He had been flagging for the past half hour and while it did slow Erik a little, he would rather that Charles held onto him than fall flat on his face.

"Thank you," Charles muttered, with an undercurrent of amusement.

"Well, it's a pretty face, shame to mess it up," Erik said with a snort. "So, base of the statue?"

"I think, if we ever get back in there, there'll be some pretty interesting stuff that will make any book on cross pollination in need of heavy revisions," Charles said, ignoring the pretty face comment.

"The style of the statue pretty much said as much," Erik agreed.

"Not just that, Erik, seriously, while the writing on the base is unlike anything I've ever seen, what it resembles the most are Egyptian hieroglyphs."

"And the statue looked Indian," Erik added. "What the hell have we stumbled upon?" he asked.

"I don't know, but I can't wait to get home and blow those lovely photos up on a large screen and start studying them closer," Charles said, sounding a little more awake, though Erik could hear his teeth chattering. While it wasn't terribly cold, they were wet and tired. Body temperatures were bound to go down even more.

If it wasn't for the fact that Erik could feel them getting closer to the car, it was possible that he would have thought they were still light years away. His feet felt like lead and his clothes were wet and cold. However, he had been in worse situations and they both had dry clothes in the truck.

"Oh yes," Charles muttered, stumbling along behind him, "that's a lovely thought. We'll turn the heat on when we drive back - I wonder if I'll ever feel warm again."

Erik grinned. "Of course you will," he promised. "Once we're back at the hotel, in the tub."

"You'll have to get in as well," Charles said with a yawn, "or I'll fall asleep and drown."

"Oh, I'll keep you awake," Erik said, feeling his attraction to Charles flare again. There was an answering rush from Charles, though it was heavily tinted with tiredness.

"Oh, my God," Charles breathed a while later, stumbling out onto the road next to the pillar that had sent them off the main trail. "I don't think I've ever been this happy to see a vehicle in my life."

Erik dragged him around to the back of the car, unlocked it and pushed open the hatchback. The light of the boot came on, they pulled their bags out and found their dry clothes. Erik dumped his jacket in the back, pulled his shirt off, dropping it on the lowered back with a wet slap, then undid his pants and bent down to fight with the wet laces of his boots.

He was nearly knocked over by the rush of want that hit him and when he quickly stood back up, staring at Charles, he found him, standing with his shirt half pulled off, staring back at Erik.

"Not now, Charles," Erik said with a laugh. "You're normally better at shielding than this!" Not that he was complaining. It worked wonders for his self confidence to have Charles so openly wanting him.

"Your confidence doesn't need any boosting," Charles muttered, face flushed with embarrassment. "You're more than self-assured enough."

Erik realized that Charles seemed almost shy now. He reached out and took hold of the shirt Charles was attempting to take off. Or use as a shield. Possibly, no matter how impossible, both. Grabbing the hem of it, he pulled it off and watched the goose bumps forming on Charles' skin.

"You've got nothing to worry about," Erik muttered, smiling as he allowed himself to watch Charles openly.

"It is all kinds of stupid, huh?" Charles said, finally fighting down his blush. "I mean, the amount of times we've undressed the other and put him to bed?"

Erik laughed and nodded. "Yeah, but I don't know about you, but I made damned sure to not look or touch more than was appropriate."

Charles gave him a quick grin. "I know, though I may have caved once or twice when you've been completely out of it - there have been times where I had to take a really good look," he admitted.

Erik wriggled out of his jeans while he was very well aware of Charles watching him. Dropping the pants on top of the shirt, he stood there in his briefs. Feeling a little reckless, he pulled them down as well, dumping them with the rest of the wet clothes.

"Charles, stop drooling, get dressed and get in the car," Erik finally said, trying very hard not to laugh. "And I thought you just said you'd been looking before when I wasn't aware of it."

"I needed wanking material," Charles said bluntly, laughing out loud at Erik's gobsmacked expression.

"You…"

"Yeah," Charles admitted. With that he took a deep breath and undressed as well.

Erik swallowed hard and grabbed his dry clothes and dressed quickly. While it was lovely watching a naked Charles, they needed to put dry clothes on and they needed to get warm.

To occupy himself while Charles went through the bags they had had along to salvage and redistribute things, Erik pulled a plastic bag out of the back of the car for their wet and dirty clothes.

Getting everything in order took enough time for Charles to look presentable again - and Erik was well aware of the mixture of shyness and pleasure his attention generated in Charles.

Shutting the boot, Charles climbed in next to him in the front of the car. He reached out and plucked the GPS tracker from the dashboard, switching it off before pocketing it.

Charles brushed his hand over Erik's on the steering wheel. "Let's get back to the hotel, order tickets for a flight home tomorrow and then get something to eat."

Erik nodded. "And that bath," he added, just to watch Charles flush again, a wash of exasperation and pleasure bleeding over.

Charles braced a knee against the dashboard, keeping his tablet balanced on his thigh as Erik drove as fast as he dared in the dark and with the path being as uneven as it was. Erik couldn't help the occasional glance at Charles, and every time he caught Charles smiling that small contented smile.

"I'm not going to just disappear, Erik. Keep your eyes on the road," he said with a small laugh."I'm transferring a copy of the photos to the secure server so Hank and Raven can have a look at it. And I've gotten us tickets home tomorrow, early in the evening."

Erik grinned and focused on the drive ahead of them. Of course Charles would be taking care of all this. Considering how scatterbrained Charles could be, especially when he was deep in some research, it never ceased to amaze Erik just how efficient he could be as well, when he put his mind to it.

"I only ever get so absorbed in research when there are other people to take care of the rest of the details," Charles muttered.

"Are you constantly going to answer unspoken questions and comment on whatever I'm thinking about?" Erik asked curiously.

Charles laughed and shook his head. "No, that would just be rude, but as long as you keep all these thoughts at the forefront of your mind, I can't help but hear them, and you of all people know that I've always had trouble keeping my mouth shut."

This time Erik laughed. "You always were a blabbermouth, Xavier," he agreed. When they had been less than sober, on occasion, it was almost always funny to just let Charles go off on a rant, completely forgetting himself, his surroundings and his audience. Erik had walked into many a pub when they were still at Uni, to find Charles less than sober, in the middle of a crowd of horrified or glassy eyed listeners.

Considering that Charles would sometimes just hold long, boring speeches about his research, he would also occasionally lecture on everything from world economy to sexual practices of ancient tribes.

The latter usually brought about the slightly horrified looks from his audience, and Erik had on more than one occasion been thanked by complete strangers for dragging Charles off mid rant.

Charles had never seemed to mind either.

"I never did," Charles admitted, tapping away at the tablet. "I always preferred your company to their attention." The last was added with a significant flushing of his cheeks.

"Hey, I can't say I was happy to share you with them," Erik admitted, in a fit of honesty. "I may as well warn you upfront, Charles. I'm a jealous asshole on the best of days."

"I know that already, darling," Charles said with a heartfelt laugh. "You've always been possessive of me, right from the first night we went out drinking."

Erik snorted. "As if you remember that," he argued. "It's ten years back and you were drunk as a skunk."

"Erik, I hate to break it to you, but you were radiating hands off before we got drunk," Charles said, sounding so fucking pleased with himself.

"Brat," Erik muttered, but he wasn't going to argue with Charles, because he was probably correct. He'd been bad at finding friends when he had first come to the States and having someone with a bubbly personality like Charles drag him along in his wake, Erik had latched on and… well, never really let go. Hopefully he'd never have to, now.

The only answer he got from Charles was a small snicker. They drove on in silence for a while and eventually the path gave way to harder ground and then an actual road and Erik found himself relaxing a lot more. The heat in the car was making him a little drowsy, but not enough to worry about driving.

Of course Charles, not having to drive and pay attention to the road, had nodded off when Erik next looked over at him. Erik allowed himself a small satisfied smile. They were both still alive and they had, if Charles was right (which he most always was), stumbled upon something pretty significant. And as important as it was, it took a backseat to Erik finally being able to fully relax around Charles. It was hard not to fight a decade's worth of habits when it came to keeping his attraction hidden, but it was pretty damned liberating to know that Charles not only welcomed, but reciprocated his feeling and wants as well.

Erik could learn to let it loose, though he'd expected to have to fight his habits more than he was so far.

Nature gave way to civilization and better roads, and finally Erik could pull into the car park of their hotel. Switching the engine and lights off, Erik turned to look at Charles who had long since passed out, leaning up against the window, mouth slightly open.

It would be alright to watch Charles for a few moments before he woke him up. Erik figured they'd need food, a bath and above all else, they needed time to explore this new side of their friendship. And Erik realized that this would be it. Not just the thing that he had missed from their friendship for years, but if this didn't pan out, he'd probably end up a sad old, single guy, relationships a thing of the past.

"You're thinking so loudly," Charles muttered from where he was leaning against the glass. "And you'll never have another relationship after today," he continued, voice dropping half a tone. "You're mine."

Erik shivered at the thought and reached over, undoing Charles' seat belt after doing the same with his own. He pulled a happily compliant Charles closer and unerringly found his lips. A small moan escaped Charles and Erik lost himself. They both needed a bath, they were smelly and disgusting, but Erik didn't care. To get out of the car would mean letting go of Charles.

Charles chuckled against his mouth and broke the kiss, nipping at Erik's lower lip. "I really don't want our first time to be in a rented car, in a semi public setting," he said quietly.

"Unload the car, head upstairs, order room service and then a bath," Erik agreed, breathlessly.

"I love a man with a plan," Charles said with a small laugh, one hand rubbing Erik's thigh, the other hooked around his neck.

"You're going to have to let go of me for a moment or two if you want us to actually implement that plan," Erik said drily, having trouble not laughing at Charles' petulant huff.

"If you insist," Charles conceded, after spending another two minutes robbing Erik of any remaining breath or brain cells.

"I do," Erik said, contradicting his own intentions by returning the favor. Charles, even gritty and sweaty tasted fantastic and felt amazing even leaning in over the stick shift of the car where there was little room to really touch and press himself against him.

"Erik, really…, let's just…," Charles moaned into his mouth again. "Erik!"

Erik laughed, feeling reckless, but he knew Charles was right. It would be so much better inside. "Okay," he said, letting go of Charles, looking meaningfully down at Charles' hand which was buried under Erik's shirt.

"Alright," Charles said with a small grin, pulling his hand away slowly, teasing his fingers along the skin of Erik's stomach.

"Charles…," Erik ground out, half a growl and half a laugh. It was amazing how Charles could do this to him. Now that the dam had burst, he knew there was no stopping it. And hell if he wanted to either.

Charles turned and opened his door. "Let's go."

Erik grinned and pulled the key from the ignition before getting out on his own side. His pants were uncomfortably tight but he knew there was little time before he could actually do something about it.

He walked around the car, pulled his bag out of the back, sharing a quick grin with Charles who was doing the same.

"We'll drop the car off at the rental service at the airport tomorrow," Erik said, "I'm afraid we'll have to pay a few bucks for cleaning service, because there's no way I'm cleaning it up."

Charles nodded. "We can afford it," he said, "and we do need to get back to examine the writings I took pictures of."

"And the night is not going to be spent cleaning," Erik said, leering at Charles, who still, to Erik's surprise, managed to blush.

"It's my fair complexion," Charles said defensively.

"I was just wondering how far and low that flush was spreading," Erik said with a wink and a widening grin. This was fun, so much more than he had ever allowed himself to hope for.

"There's that deranged shark grin again," Charles muttered, shoving at Erik's shoulder before shutting the car and waiting for Erik to lock it.

"You like it," Erik said, knowing he was right.

"So sue me," Charles relented, walking companionably next to Erik as they made their way towards the reception.

"I intend to marry you instead - easiest way to your money," Erik teased, shouldering his bag. He walked for two more steps, then realized that Charles had stopped. Turning around he found Charles just standing there, gaping at him.

"You mean that," he said, wonder evident in his voice.

"Charles, I want you… no one else." Erik looked around, but thankfully it was so late that no one else was near them. "This isn't the place to have this conversation."

Erik wondered, as they entered the hotel, if he had overstepped, if he had offered and wanted more from Charles than Charles had originally intended to give. And the one time it seemed Erik either wasn't projecting or Charles wasn't listening, this would be it, because Charles said nothing, and his face wasn't giving anything away either.

Fighting the sinking feeling in his stomach, Erik waited for Charles to walk past him, then followed him into the hotel. The tightness in his chest spread and Erik was so damned worried. Stupid. He'd been so stupid. It was too early to make such jokes even if he had meant every damned word.

Inside, they got their key at the reception and Erik made sure to keep calm, to simply follow Charles into the elevator. Two floors up and Erik pushed out of the elevator, for once not feeling the comfort of its metal plates, its steel construction.

Three, four doors from their room, the hallway deserted, Erik stopped when Charles' hand closed around his wrist, holding him still.

Erik took a steadying breath, turning around, apology on his tongue. And it would have gotten out, if Charles hadn't more or less jumped on him, biting and kissing at his mouth, desperately trying to climb Erik.

"Oh God," Erik moaned, a moment before Charles' mouth was on his again. He staggered, hands grasping at Charles' waist, his ass, anything he could grab onto. And there he had been worrying.

"Erik, don't spring something like that on me, don't _joke_ about such things," Charles panted against his mouth.

Erik wanted to tell him that he hadn't been joking, but there wasn't enough air for that and he was _busy_ , damn it.

The distance to their own door seemed to have tripled and Erik struggled to keep his balance, bag slung over his shoulder, Charles clinging to him, doing his level best to eat him alive.

Pressing Charles against their door, Erik lifted the key card from Charles' slack fingers using three attempts before he managed to swipe it through the reader. Then Charles managed to snake a hand down Erik's pants and they more or less fell through the door as it opened.

The twin thuds of their bags hitting the floor, the sound of the door falling shut. Nothing really registered with Erik and Charles was busy keeping _him_ busy. Erik bit at Charles' lips, his chin, his neck, as he half lifted, half walked Charles back towards the bed.

"I thought we were taking a bath first," Charles panted, head thrown back to give Erik better access.

"If you want to stop now, to get to the bath," Erik muttered, licking and biting at Charles' skin.

"Oh no," Charles said with a moan, "we'll get dirty having sex, so we'd need another later anyway."

"Water preservation," Erik said with a small laugh, his breath hitching as Charles writhed against him. "How environmentally conscious of you."

"Oh, shut up," Charles said, or Erik figured that was what he was trying to say, because it came out more than a little unintelligible.

Erik dropped him on the bed, watching him bounce before he pulled his shirt up over his head. When he was free of it, he found Charles up on his knees on the bed, fingers hooking in the waistband of Erik's pants, pulling him in closer.

"You practically proposed to me," Charles growled, "in the middle of the bloody car park!"

Erik laughed, his earlier anxiety vaporizing. He put his hands on Charles' face, cupping his jaw. Taking a deep breath, he wanted to ask Charles what his answer would have been if....

There was strange noise, like a pop and the smell of sulfur.

Erik's eyes widened when he looked over Charles' shoulder, demonic eyes meeting his and something whipped out and lashed painfully across his body, from hip to chin. Then Charles was gone and the room was silent.

Staggering back, Erik looked down at himself, blood trickling from the long, superficial wound.

"Charles?" Erik's breath quickened. "Charles!?" _'Charles!'_

Erik stared at the empty bed, sheets rumpled from Charles having knelt on them. The smell of sulfur was still heavy in the air, thick in his nose, making him gag.

Feeling shell shocked, Erik sank to his knees. He'd lost Charles. Had him for a moment and then he was gone. Where the hell could he be? And was he even still conscious? Erik knew that Charles was a hell of a powerful telepath, the fact that he wasn't hearing Charles in his mind this very moment... Erik swallowed hard.

Distance, it had to be because of distance.

"Shaw," Erik ground out, "when I find you, I will kill you, slowly and painfully." Charles was gone, had been taken who knew where by Azazel.

Erik grabbed his discarded bag and drew out the satellite phone. First call would be to Raven. He needed to get her to send the jet down. There was no way in hell he was waiting for a commercial flight the next day.


	11. Chapter 11

"Raven, I need that jet, I need to get out of here. I need to get somewhere where we can search for Charles." Erik rubbed his tired eyes.

 _"It's under maintenance, Erik,"_ Raven said, _"I can't get it to you that fast! And are you sure that Charles..."_

"Raven... never mind," Erik said. "I'll call you, I'll find another way." With that, he hung up, then redialled. He knew he should feel bad about worrying her like this and then just hanging up, but time _was_ of the essence. He didn't want Shaw to have Charles for a second longer than he could avoid.

_"Stark Industries, Pepper Potts, how may I help you?"_

"This is Erik Lehnsherr, Ms. Potts," Erik began.

 _"Mr. Lehnsherr. How may I help you?"_ Her voice changed subtly from the corporate distance of a PA to a more genuinely interested one.

"I need to speak with Mr. Stark, and quickly. Tell him Charles is in trouble," Erik said, trying to breathe easy. He walked into the bathroom, taking one of the towels and wetting it. Dabbing at the blood on his chest, it stung, but the pain helped him clear his head of tiredness.

 _"Please hold,"_ she replied.

Erik rubbed his forehead, frowning. He hated having to wait when Charles was in danger and the seconds were ticking away. A moment later there was another sound on the line of a phone being picked up.

_"Erik, what's going on?"_

"Shaw has Charles, and I need to get from Cuzco, Peru back to New York," Erik said. "I need to be somewhere where I have a chance of organizing a search for him."

There was silence at the other end. _"You're sure he has him?"_ There was no disbelief in his tone, simply a request for verification.

"Azazel literally ripped him from my hands," Erik said with a growl.

 _"I've got a jet in Miami. Get to the airport, it'll be there in two hours. It'll take you to New York, where there'll be a chopper waiting to bring you to the Tower,"_ Stark said. _"Get some sleep on the flight if you can, I'm setting up a search and rescue."_

Erik drew a deep breath. He opened his mouth to argue. Then shut it again.

 _"Erik... we'll find him. Is there anything else I can use for leads while you're on your way?"_ Tony's voice had softened remarkably.

Erik was about to say no, but then paused, thinking back. "We found something, in a cave. Something that might lead to the ... well fountain of eternal life," Erik started. "I'm sure that's what Shaw is after. Charles will have had the pictures on his tablet, which is still here. But I know he's created a copy that'll be on the usb key he's carrying with him everywhere." Erik paused. "If Shaw finds those, he'll force Charles to translate them for him."

_"Send me the files, and I'll set the computer on it - it's not as good as Charles, but it'll have to do."_

"Call Raven, Charles sent the files to the server as well, get her and McCoy on it, too." Erik rubbed his eyes tiredly.

 _"I'll get them over here as fast as possible,"_ Tony promised.

Erik swallowed hard. "Thank you."

_"No sweat, Erik. Just get to the airport and let me do the rest for now. Okay?"_

"Okay," Erik said quietly, staring at himself in the bathroom mirror.

_"I'll see you later. And try not to worry too much, Erik. Charles is a big boy and he's a telepath. He can take care of himself."_

"I know," Erik whispered. "But..."

_"We'll find him, Erik."_

"I'll see you in a while," Erik ground out, then hung up.

\---♦♦♦---♦♦♦---

The flight was like a little pocket of hell. Erik had tried to rest, but after tossing and turning in the, admittedly, comfortable seat, he pulled his bag up onto the seat next to him.

There were definite upsides to a corporate jet and Stark's had all the bells and whistles. Erik had long since made sure that the images that Charles had transferred to his tablet and the server had been sent on to Stark for further study.

While he might not have the computer's eye for detail or Charles' knowledge, Erik was going to spend the hours he wouldn't be sleeping anyway studying and making notes. Charles had always been the one to do the research and while Erik had never minded the tedious searching through old texts, making comparisons, he did by far prefer the hands on version. He was the one who retrieved information, relics, photos of things, statues, architecture that would interest Charles.

Not that he was incapable of using the knowledge he had gained over the years. Erik had followed many of the same classes that Charles had and he had a damned good memory, so most of the things that Charles would share that was outside what had been expected of them at uni, had stuck. It had helped Erik out of trouble more than once. Even if one might think booby traps were not an everyday occurrence in his line of work, it happened more often than he cared to think about.

Erik sat staring unseeingly at the images. He could still recall their first study session. It had happened around the same time that he had been conned into sharing the apartment with Charles and Raven. It had come as a surprise to no one that three years later, he had gone with Charles to study at Oxford University and later returned with him to New York.

He had occasionally wondered why Raven had chosen to stay in the States to do her business degree, because back then it was uncommon to see one without the other two. And it had weirded Erik out. In the beginning, especially.

He had grown up an only child, very much loved by his parents, but not used to being around his peers twenty four seven. Being beset upon by the Xavier siblings... it had definitely taught him a thing or two about social interaction. He recalled telling his aunt, his mother's sister, with whom he still occasionally had email conversations, about the Xaviers. He'd explained to her that his relationship with the the two had equaled a crash course in social interaction.

He had always found the description to be rather apt. He'd been an angry kid when he had arrived to do his studies in the States. His aunt Maria had done well in taking care of him until that point, but Erik had needed to get away from Europe for a while. All the places around him had been familiar, had reminded him of the parents he had lost when he was fifteen.

Five years later, he'd had enough, frightened more than a little by his own deep seated anger. He wanted revenge, he wanted to kill Shaw for what he had done. Petty, was what it had been. Erik's family had owned more than a few antiquities, and they hadn't wanted to sell.

And for this, Shaw had killed them.

It had also been the day Erik's powers had gone from minor entertainment - of levitating small metal objects, to, fueled by his anger and grief, strong enough to pull a building down on top of Shaw.

How the asshole had survived, was still a mystery to Erik.

Erik had gone through years, thinking Shaw was dead and buried. It wasn't until he'd tried to steal some family heirloom from Charles' home in Westchester, that Erik had recognized him and had nearly leveled the mansion in angry reaction.

The fact that he'd had Azazel try again a few years later by way of dating Raven? Only made Erik want even more to rip Shaw apart. Slowly and painfully. And for good this time.

And now he had Charles, which meant Erik would do what he could to get him back and make Shaw pay. However, for once the revenge took the backseat. Erik needed Charles safe, first and foremost.

Charles had been... Charles... had been a constant through his life since they had met. Always the idealist to Erik's occasional pessimist and anger at the world in general and Shaw in particular. Always there for Erik when he had needed the support.

He still wished, when he was feeling maudlin, that his parents were alive so they could meet Charles and Raven, so they could see what a life their son was living. Okay, it probably wasn't a good idea to share with them the sort of dangers he got into. Even his aunt didn't know of those. She thought he went on archeological digs. 

Which, stretching the truth, he sort of did.

Looking out of the window, into the dark skies, feeling a little more comfortable with the metal casing of the jet surrounding him, Erik wondered what he had done to earn having Charles and then to watch him torn from his side again shortly after.

It had felt so good to finally be allowed to touch, encouraged, wanted in return. He could still feel the pressure of Charles' lips on his, the rush of arousal thundering through him.

And then Azazel had popped in and out of reality and Charles had been gone. Erik had to wonder what they had done to him, worried even, because Charles should have been capable of fighting them off once Azazel brought him back to Shaw's lair, wherever it might be.

He had to trust that Shaw had Charles for a reason, that he was worth more to him alive than dead.

"Please be alive," Erik muttered, leaning his head against the window, staring unseeingly out. _'I need you to be alive, Charles, and I need you to come back to me in one piece. Please be okay.'_

There was no answer, but Erik hadn't really expected any. They probably kept Charles drugged to keep him from using his power. If he was awake and capable of doing what he normally could, Erik knew Shaw and his henchmen had little they could do against him.

Erik recalled once having taunted Charles into using his powers to control him. It had been a… pretty freaky experience.

Being aware of what you were doing, but having absolutely no control over it whatsoever, trying to go left and Charles had made him go right, walk when he had tried to sit. And there had been little humor in it in the end, as Erik had been able to tell how little the concept had appealed to Charles.

Now all he could do was focus on the photos they'd taken, see if there was anything he could decipher that Charles would as well and maybe intercept Shaw. Before anything happened to Charles. There was always a risk if he kept his mind unshielded in case Charles managed to contact him, but he knew Shaw had Emma Frost by his side and Erik couldn't afford to risk her shutting him down or controlling him. She was good, she was strong, even if she wasn't on Charles' level.

Erik had had the misfortune of going up against her once and she had punched through his mental shields like they had been made of rice paper. Granted, Charles had taught him a lot since, but Erik wasn't stupid. He knew when he was outmatched.

Best way out, at least according to Charles, was to force her into her diamond form, in which case she was shielding herself in a way that meant she couldn't use her powers against anyone else.

Or that at least was what they had pieced together from the few encounters they'd had. It wasn't as if you could just google your opponent's weaknesses and strengths. Erik allowed himself a small smile. Maybe he should suggest to Stark to start a database where they could do just this. Raven would probably agree, but Charles would probably not, and Hank would do whatever Charles did.

Erik pulled Charles' tablet into his lap, starting the picture sequence over again. He could scarcely afford to waste hours sleeping. If he had been the one missing, Charles would have been tearing the world apart too, by now. It was how it worked, how _they_ worked.


	12. Chapter 12

"There's a fresh set of clothes in the bathroom," Tony said. Those were his first words to Erik when he stepped through the office door.

"We need," Erik began, already feeling annoyed.

"You need a shower and something to eat," Tony told him, waving him towards a door on the opposite side of the office. "You stink, you're beyond grumpy and don't tell me you ate or slept on the jet, because I know from my staff that you didn't."

Erik stopped dead, dropped his bag onto the floor and ran a tired hand over his face. One of the reasons why Stark tended to rub him the wrong way: the constant know-it-all attitude and the fact that he was rarely wrong.

Tony put a hand on his shoulder and shook him lightly. Erik didn't answer right away, just blinked and looked him in the eye.

"We'll find him, Erik, but you won't be any good in the search if you keel over from tiredness and lack of food." Tony's voice was low and unlike his usual loud attitude, and this weaved its way through Erik's defenses.

Nodding, Erik picked his bag up again, and made his way to the bathroom.

"Take your time, I've asked Pepper to order some food and energy drinks," Tony called after him. "Coffee too, as I get the feeling we're not sleeping anytime soon."

Erik found himself chuckling and feeling a little more at ease. He walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind him. Trust Tony to have an office with not only a nice big couch, but access to facilities like a huge bathroom with a tub and a shower stall.

Erik gave the tub a long, lingering look. He could do with a nice long soak, but it would only serve to take longer and make him sleepier than he already was. The fact that he had made plans with Charles for a nice long soak in a tub, didn't exactly help. It might be silly, but he would stick to the shower and save the tub for when they got Charles back.

'You'd make Charles laugh if he could hear you,' Erik thought to himself. And oh, how he wished Charles could. He kept his mind open still, but had felt nothing from Charles so far.

He dropped his hat on the sink and undid his belt and jeans, letting them drop to the floor. Underwear and jacket and t-shirt followed. His leather jacket was probably beyond salvageable which sent another pang through his chest. It had been a gift from Charles for his 25th birthday and it had served Erik well over the years.

Not to mention that now, knowing that Charles was interested in him and probably had been for ages, the little perv would have bought it for him because he liked seeing Erik in it.

Allowing himself a small grin, he reached in and turned on the water, happy to discover that the shower had two heads and more than a decent water pressure. With a groan, he stepped inside, under the spray, while closing the door of the stall.

The hot water hammered against his skin, loosening tense muscles, washing dirt and sweat off his skin. Erik let his head hang, feeling the spray from both heads hitting his skin. Water cascaded down over his neck, running like numerous miniature waterfalls, droplets hanging off his nose, his eyelashes.

Taking a deep breath, he straightened up, poured soap from the dispenser on the side of the shower and quickly washed off. Switching off the water, he stepped outside the stall. Stark had made sure that there were towels and clothes, alright. And Erik was surprised to find clothes that fit him perfectly. Stark and he were not built the same way and the t-shirt and jeans ensemble on the chair by the door was more Erik's style than Tony's as well.

Erik stared at the boots underneath the chair. The type he normally wore when he wasn't kneedeep in a jungle somewhere. He liked hiking boots, but it was a bit creepy that Stark had noticed his habit of wearing good old fashioned leather cowboy boots the times they had met.

Shaking his head, Erik put the clothes on, sat down on the chair and put on socks and boots. And yes, of course they fit.

Erik wiped steam off the mirror and looked at himself. He looked tired, worn out, but he didn't have time to rest until he was sure anything and everything was being done to find Charles. The bags under his eyes were irrelevant, but he knew Charles would rip him a new one if he didn't take care of himself. And if he failed to do so while searching for Charles, the man would never let him hear the end of it.

Running his fingers through his hair, Erik shrugged and turned away. Entering the office again, he found Stark and his PA standing at the large desk, looking over the monitor embedded in the surface, quietly exchanging words.

On a table next to the desk, stood refreshments and Erik's stomach growled before he could let them know he was there.

"Erik, grab a bite and then come over here and help me out," Tony said, handing a small device over to Potts before nodding at the door. She left them to do whatever it was Tony was asking for and Erik did as he was told. The sandwiches went down like lead in water and Erik was unsure if he had ever tasted anything that good. It was simple yes, but damn it, he had been so hungry. Maybe knowing that he was not doing this alone had allowed him to finally feel like eating.

Or possibly, he'd just hit the wall and his body was telling him in no small words that he needed food and drink.

Downing one can of Red Bull, Erik opened another one, stepping over to the desk, staring down on the map of the world.

"Raven and McCoy are on their way," Tony told him, sitting down in his chair, gesturing for Erik to do the same. "I'm not going to ask you to go over what happened until they get here."

Erik shook his head. "It's okay, we got to the hotel, we…" Erik trailed off. Was he ready to share this new thing between him and Charles with everyone? Especially Raven? To share with her that he'd been making out with her brother? Even if she would condone it, which he was pretty sure she would.

"How come Charles didn't spot them?" Tony asked. "I know he shields, but he's normally pretty aware of what goes on around him?"

Erik took a deep breath. "We were tired, just coming back from a bit of an adventure. Booby traps, jungle, the works," he explained. "And it was Azazel who hit us, teleported into the room, right behind Charles, grabbed him and disappeared."

Tony nodded. "If you were tired, no wonder he could do that. And if no one else was nearby, I doubt Charles would have picked up on their intent."

Erik coughed and felt his face flush. "We were a little preoccupied as well," he said before he could stop himself.

A soft smile curved Tony's lips, bordering on a smirk. "Near death experience triggers a few things, urges," he said, catching on easily. "I would have thought the honeymoon phase was over years ago, though."

Erik stared at him. "We don't... didn't have a physical relationship until now," he said quietly, almost missing Tony's eyes widening.

"You're meaning to tell me, that the two of you have been flirting and having eye sex for years and you've only just done something about it?" Tony stared at him, incomprehension plain on his face.

Erik crossed his arms over his chest. "We haven't been flirting," he said, feeling off balance. "And I think I would have noticed any type of eye sex going on, thank you very much."

Tony choked off a laugh. "Erik, with the two of you in the same room, pretty often it's like no one else is around, even with twenty other people there. The two of you are so focused on each other that it's downright scary."

Erik groaned and bent forward, elbows on his knees and face buried in the palms of his hands.

"So, when you said he was literally torn from your hands, you meant it, huh?" Tony said quietly.

"Yeah," Erik admitted, face still in his hands. Damn, he felt so tired, even with the energy drinks pushing through his body.

"Erik, I'm not prying, but was Charles dressed and," Tony said, holding up a hand when Erik sat bolt upright, mouth open to tell him to fuck off. "And was he carrying any of my gadgets with him?"

Erik shut his mouth. "I... I don't know. I mean, he was dressed, yes, we'd only just stumbled through the door of our hotel room. But whether or not he was carrying any of them... The tablet was in his bag, the cell phone in his jacket, which was on the floor."

"Well, if he is carrying any of them and it's switched on at any point," Tony said, reaching onto the screen that made up the desktop. "If it's switched on, it will send out a signal that we can monitor for."

"Odds are," Erik began.

"Let's forget odds for a minute," Tony said, sitting back in his chair, watching Erik. "This is Charles Francis Xavier we're talking about. Man has more lives than a cat and he's smart and creative."

Erik breathed in deeply, finally sitting back in his seat. "You're right, if there's any way of leaving us a trail to follow, he will."

"That's the spirit," Tony said with a small grin. He looked at a small dialogue box appearing on the screen next to the map. "Raven and McCoy are here. When they get up here, we'll go over the photos Charles sent, see if we can come up with half Charles' brain power when we put ours together."

Finally finding a smile, however forced it was, Erik nodded. "Yeah, you're right. And don't tell Raven about Charles and me just yet, okay?"

Tony grinned, but mimicked zipping his lips together.


	13. Chapter 13

Raven nearly took the door off its hinges coming through, she was in that much of a hurry. She ran up to Erik, slapped him and then threw her arms around him.

Erik wasn't sure how to react, so he simply stood there, staring. Just when he'd thought he'd gotten used to the Xavier school of behavior…

"I'm sorry, Erik, but you lost Charles!" she huffed against his neck. "But I'm so glad to see you're alive, and being the stubborn bastard that you are, I know we'll find him."

Erik carefully put his arms around her, holding on as she obviously fought to find her emotional self-control again. "I'm sorry, but it was Shaw's demon who took him and it happened far too fast for either of us to react," he told her quietly.

The swearing this resulted in caused even Tony to blush, much to Erik's amusement.

"Raven, I know you hate Azazel and I promise you, when we catch up with them, you can do whatever you want to with him. String him up by the balls if you must, but calm down - you're scaring Tony," Erik told her dryly.

Raven took a deep breath and stepped away from Erik, composing herself before turning to Tony to give him a quick hug and hello.

Erik looked at the doorway where McCoy was still lurking. Ever since Hank had fiddled with his own DNA and managed to accelerate his mutation, the man had gone from shy to wallpaper behavior. Which was a sad thing, as he was one of the smartest people Erik knew. "Come on in, kid. It's good to have you here as well. I know you've already had a look, but I need you to help me figure those photos out that Charles sent you and Raven earlier." He took a calming breath, then continued. "I think it's what Shaw is after and possibly, if we follow the leads, we'll find Charles."

McCoy looked a little more at ease and nodded, stepping inside and closing the door behind him.

"What exactly happened?" Raven asked, coming over to him again, dragging him over to the couch to sit down.

"One moment we were in the hotel room, the next there was that stench of sulfur that's Azazel's trademark," Erik told her, allowing her to hang onto his hands. "He lashed out at me, but it's just a scratch." He rubbed at his chest where the skin was itching as it healed.

Raven reached out but stopped just short of his chest. "I'm sorry," she said quietly.

"Don't be, it wasn't your fault. And we'll find Charles," he told her, determination flaring in his mind. They had to.

Raven nodded. "Let's get at it then," she agreed.

Tony finally spoke up, having let them have their reunion. "Let's have a look at what we have, what the computer's come up with and what Erik's found out, because I know you weren't resting like I told you to."

"You're a worse mother hen than Charles," Erik growled, but he still got to his feet, giving Raven a hand up.

"No, Erik, I just know how you work plus this is Charles we're talking about," Stark said with a small grin. "I also remember what you're like after a week of no sleep, so I suggest we find Charles for the sake of the rest of the world and our mental health."

"Ha-ha, you're a fucking comedian, Stark," Erik growled, but he walked up to the huge monitor, where Tony was bringing up the photos Charles had taken in the cave.

\---♦♦♦---♦♦♦---

After a few hours, Erik was rubbing his head, a hellish headache brewing. "I know it's no use wishing for Charles to be here," he said quietly, "but he's the only one of us who can decipher these."

Tony put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, then leaned in over him and stared at one of the images. "Hang on a second," he said "I'm not sure, but what we've been looking for until now has been Indian in origin, because of the statue and Egyptian because of the writing, right?"

Erik nodded, wondering where Tony was going.

"The statue itself is Indian in origin," Raven agreed. 

"There is a lot of the writing on the base of the statue that doesn't resemble either," McCoy said, calling up a few pictures they had already gone through.

"Yeah, that's what I meant," Tony said, reaching over and pulling an image closer, tapping it to zoom. "I've seen this before," he muttered, "or at least something similar."

Erik turned his head, staring at Tony who was still leaning on him. Then he looked down at the photos. The images they had been focusing on were perfectly sharp, but the one Tony was looking at seemed to be in the background, and a little grainy.

"It's upside down, but I'm pretty sure it's a rune," Tony said. "Excuse me for a moment, I'm gonna make a phone call."

"It's in the middle of the night," Raven said, staring at him.

"He won't mind," Tony muttered, pulling out his cell and hitting speed dial. "Just keep at it, but I'm getting the feeling we should start looking for runes between those hieroglyphs."

Erik exchanged looks with Raven and Hank, but then shrugged. If Tony had recognized something that would get them further, then who was he to argue? Erik leaned back and rubbed his forehead again. If he'd had a clear head he should have seen those too. Always spot the odd one out, it had helped him before when he'd been on one of his quests. Erik drew in a deep breath. He knew he was in dire need of sleep, because seriously, he should have caught that himself.

Raven was watching him silently, then elbowed Hank and nodded at Erik. Erik just ignored them. He was tired, he probably wasn't tracking a hundred percent. Strike that, he _knew_ he wasn't tracking a hundred.

Hank stood and went over to his bag and withdrew something from it, a small metal casing. Putting it on the table next to Erik, he pulled out a syringe. "Tilt your head to the side," he told him gruffly and Erik just stared up at him. No, he definitely wasn't tracking a hundred percent.

"Mr. Lehnsherr," Hank said quietly. "I've got a booster for you here. You will take it or you will sleep and eat more."

Erik glared at him. He couldn't just lie down right now and rest.

"I thought as much, please... the booster is merely vitamins and a few things that will bolster your immune system," Hank continued.

Closing his eyes, Erik nodded. "I better not come out of this blue and furry," he joked.

Hank snorted. "If I boosted your natural mutation, Lehnsherr, you would end up a human magnet, not to mention you'd probably wreak havoc on the Earth's magnetic fields - a human EMP would be the worst case scenario."

"You're a scary man, McCoy," Erik said quietly. "I'm glad you're not on Shaw's side."

"The man's insane," Hank said. "Whatever the treasure is in this case, I'm sure he could use it as a weapon."

Erik could only agree. However, his first priority was getting Charles back, then he would deal with Shaw.

Once and for all.

"Thank you," Tony said, before hanging up on his cell phone. He went over to the images and started sorting through them. "Help me find the ones that look vaguely like Norse runes," he told them. "I've got a friend who's really good at reading those and I think they're so well hidden within the other writings for a reason."

"You think hiding them in plain sight would actually..." Erik trailed off, he looked over the photos again - dear god, someone should teach Charles to take less, because there were two hundred plus images there. However, now that he knew what he was looking for...

"This one," Raven said, pushing one of the images across the monitor.

Erik nodded. He tagged two more and pushed them into the same pile.

McCoy did the same, adding five more images.

They all went through the remaining images, but none seemed to contain any signs of runes.

"I suggest you get some rest," Tony told them. "I'm sending these to my friend and when he gets back to me, we're moving out, wherever those runes tell us to."

"Are we just going to trust that we're right about it?" Erik asked, rubbing his strained eyes again. He wasn't sure how he felt about only chasing one lead. If it turned out to be a red herring...

"I'll make sure it's cross referenced with anything that might be connected with Shaw, but I've already done that with India and the surrounding countries as well as Egypt." Tony shook his head. "Nothing. I'm thinking wherever the runes lead us, that's it. Anyone with a little knowledge of history, archaeology, anthropology can tell the Indian origin of the statue."

"Too easy," Erik agreed. "Not that the booby traps made it easy to get out with those images."

"I suggest we all pack, get some rest and we're heading off as soon as I get something back on these," Tony said, circling the images on the monitor, zipping the file and sending it off to a server address.

"Erik, you coming home with us?" Raven asked.

Erik opened his mouth to answer, but he was interrupted by a yawn. Even energy drinks and coffee seemed to have their limitations and McCoy hadn't promised the concoction would keep Erik awake.

"He'll be unconscious by the time you get him halfway there, Raven," Tony said, "I've got an apartment above this office where he can crash. If you want to, Erik."

Erik nodded. "I think if I attempt to get anywhere too far from here, I'll keel over and just go to sleep."

Raven stood on her toes and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Get some rest, you're no good to Charles if you drive yourself into the ground."

"Yeah, I know. And he'll kick my ass if I don't take care of myself," he agreed.

Raven grinned. "You're right about that." She turned around and pointed a finger at Tony. "Don't you dare take off without us," she warned him.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Tony said with a wink.

The office was quiet once Hank and Raven were gone and Erik found himself sitting on the couch, somewhere between awake and unconscious.

"Hey, come on," Tony said, offering him a hand up. "Let's get you tucked in and then I'll make sure everything's ready."

Erik couldn't even find the energy to argue with him. "Just a nap, then," he said with a small laugh.

Tony didn't answer, but he was smiling as he led Erik out of the office, through the outer hallways, dark as most people there had gone home for the night. He pulled Erik inside an elevator and took him up one floor before Erik found himself being pushed into a room and towards a bed.

"Get some sleep, Lehnsherr - and before I forget it," Tony said, holding up Charles' tablet. "I made sure Raven didn't go through the images on the tablet - since you didn't seem interested in her knowing about you and Charles just yet."

"Huh?" Erik felt like his brain was slow as molasses. He looked at the tablet where the screen was now on.

Tony just laughed softly and tapped a few things, opening up a photo folder. Erik stared for a moment, then felt his face flush. "If I didn't love the bastard, I'd consider this creepy," he admitted with a small laugh.

With a snort, Tony left the tablet on the bed and bid him good night.

Erik slipped out of his jeans and t-shirt and slipped under the sheets, holding up the tablet and reactivating the backlight. The date on the photo was nearly a year back and it showed Erik conked out on Charles' couch, drooling on the armrest and looking like he hadn't a care in the world. Someone, probably Charles, had thrown a blanket over him.

Flipping through the images, Erik stopped at one that showed both Charles and him. He had to focus harder for a moment to remember where it had been taken, then realized that it was Raven's birthday, the year before. If he had seen this image before, he might not have doubted how Charles felt about him. Someone, probably Raven - and wasn't that a kick in the pants? She probably already knew, had taken the picture at the right moment, while they had been tipsy and were leaning close to each other, completely focused on one another.

How could Erik not have noticed before? "Because you were busy hiding from Charles," he told himself with a shake of the head. He just had to hope they hadn't finally begun addressing their mutual attraction only to have it taken away by Shaw. He had to believe that he would get Charles back, alive.

Shaw had taken his parents from him, he was not going to let him take Charles as well.


	14. Chapter 14

Erik was at a strange stage between asleep and awake when Tony came by to wake him up. His mind was full of strange dark flickering images - nothing concrete, just impressions. It was possible he'd needed more rest than he'd managed to get, though there wasn't really time for more.

"I've got a verification on the runes," Tony said without preamble, dropping a bag on the end of the bed. Erik's bag. "Washed and repacked," Tony said with a grin. "And no, you haven't been sleeping more than five hours, but Raven and Hank are on their way out to the jet and so are you and I in a moment."

"So, we know where we're going?" Erik asked, rubbing his eyes and trying to wake up.

"More or less," Tony admitted. "I'm hoping when we get there, we'll be able to pick something up."

Erik got dressed as quickly as he could. "And where is 'more or less', direction-wise?" he asked, quietly.

Tony waited for him to finish getting dressed, then gestured for him to follow. "Norway, northern part, the shore facing the Barents Sea. There's been a few claimed sightings of a submarine, but no pictures so far."

Erik did the location calculations in his head. "Wouldn't everyone blame the Russians and pay extra attention?" he asked.

"You'd think so, yeah," Tony agreed, "considering that's happened a few times before. Of course, we can't underestimate Shaw's connections. It does, however, make it a little easier for us to operate in Norwegian airspace. They know what we're looking for and any intel that shows a breach of Norwegian sovereignty that we pick up, we turn over to them. It's the agreement."

"I wouldn't be surprised if he had a sub," Erik said with a yawn as he shifted his bag to the other shoulder. Of course Shaw would have the bigger toys. "So this friend of yours," Erik said, following Tony into his office, "did he know what the runes were or did it just give us enough of a hint for you to start looking for activities in the general area that reek of Shaw?"

"He just pointed me in the general direction. However, the sightings are a couple of weeks back, so we can't be sure since Shaw would only just have gotten his hands on the images Charles took. If he even got them from Charles, that is," Tony added.

"It depends," Erik said, putting his bag down on the floor, taking a deep breath when Tony handed him a cup of steaming hot coffee. "If he stuck to his usual MO, Charles will have transferred a copy of the photos to the USB key he carries around with him. One of yours, by the way, so it can handle almost anything."

Tony nodded. "It's also heavily encrypted."

"I don't think that would stop Shaw, but he'd have to know Charles had them there, and Charles can be a stubborn ass on a good day." Erik felt a rush of fondness and worry. The longer Charles held out against Shaw, the more hurt Shaw would put him through.

Tony tapped in a few commands on the desk monitor and then shut it down. "Let's go," he said, "I've transferred what we need to the jet and it'll be ready for us when we get there."

The drive to the airfield bugged Erik. It felt like they weren't moving fast enough, and knowing that Charles was possibly halfway around the world…

"Erik, stop fretting," Tony told him, shooting him an annoyed look as he weaved in and out of traffic.

"Easy enough for you to say," Erik growled, "You don't know what Shaw is capable of and he's got Charles."

"I know that Shaw goes after relics, and that he'll stop at nothing to get what he wants," Tony said quietly.

"That's not half of it," Erik said, rubbing his eyes and staring out as they rushed past other cars. "To Shaw, it's not the historical meaning of an artifact, it's what kind of power it can grant him. In many ways he collects them like Hitler did during the last world war - power, the possibility of the items having magical abilities, lending him power to extend his rule."

"Charming comparison," Tony muttered.

"Very, and that's Charles' comparison, by the way," Erik replied. "Shaw is a collector - he likes expensive things, _rare_ things - for that matter, rare people. He's tried to recruit me a few times, but I think the last time I tore a building down on top of him he got the message." Erik snorted and dug his fingers into the leather of the seat as Tony made a spectacularly mad swerve around another car. "You'd think a guy would understand that he couldn't recruit a man whose parents he'd killed."

"Shaw's a basketcase," Tony agreed, "and I wish we knew what he was looking for."

"Eternal life, possibly," Erik theorized. "We were following leads to a fountain of youth type legend in South America."

"Well, there are many legends centering around the idea of eternal life," Tony agreed. "Most people try to leave behind an imprint, be remembered… but of course there are men like Shaw who have to have power, always."

Erik nodded but stayed quiet. He was still worried that he couldn't feel Charles anywhere, couldn't feel his mind.

He voiced this when they were aboard the jet, settling into their seats.

"Distance," Raven began, but Erik shook his head.

"I think I've always had a whisper of him in the back of my mind no matter where I've been," Erik argued. "I may not be able to hear actual thoughts, words, but he's always there, has been for years."

Raven just stared at him. "And you don't find this strange?" she asked, eyes wide.

"It's been a gradual thing, I guess," Erik said defensively. "It's just been a constant awareness. Charles has even occasionally mentioned that he's picked up on me being in trouble, on my mood when adrenaline's been running high."

McCoy looked up from the monitor he was studying. "According to Charles, he _is_ limited by distance," he said, looking at Erik as if he wanted nothing more than to put him under a microscope.

Those yellow eyes did tend to make him seem even more eerie. Erik was thankful that McCoy had idealism in spades, because he could have made a perfectly mad scientist without.

"He's never been able to feel me across more than a few hundred miles," Raven said, looking decidedly jealous.

"Maybe you've been shielding for so many years and Erik hasn't?" Hank asked, accepting the coffee one of Stark's assistants offered him before heading back into the front of the cabin, having delivered refreshments for all of them.

"I'm always shielding," Erik argued. "Shaw has a telepath, and Charles has made damned sure that I know how to shield myself best."

"But do you shield against Charles?" Tony asked, sitting down across from him. "He's no danger to you and there's a difference between shielding your thoughts and generally shielding your presence."

Erik took a deep breath and wondered himself. "Maybe, maybe you're right, but in the end the result is the same, I can't feel him." Having admitted it only made the void feel even more pronounced.

"You said so yourself," Tony said, tapping through information on his monitor, pulling up a map of the world on the larger monitor embedded in the partition between their cabin and the front where the crew was. "Shaw has his own telepath - it's only logical that he'd have some sort of way of neutralizing Charles' powers. Hell, a Faraday cage adapted to telepaths isn't impossible."

Hank nodded. "It's more than possible."

"Shaw trusts no one," Erik said, "least of all a telepath and he's had years to test ideas out on Frost."

"So, you see, he's hidden, but he's still alive," Raven said, determined to not allow any of them to dwell on the worst.

Erik nodded. He would have to trust Charles to take care of himself until they could find him.

The jet had been in the air for a few hours, when suddenly Tony sat up, staring at the map on the wall monitor.

They were all sitting around, reading through reports from various news sources, trying to find hints of Shaw's involvement. Missing relics, missing …well, anything that could have added to Shaw's continuously growing power.

The rest of the flight was quiet, though Erik caught Tony walking towards the back of the cabin, sitting down and dialing his contact.

Erik was curious, but if Tony trusted this contact, then Erik would not worry too much. He could still hear snippets here and there, as Tony asked to speak with someone named Donald, patiently waiting until whoever it was came on the line. Then Tony's voice fell even lower and Erik gave up eavesdropping.


	15. Chapter 15

Much to Erik's annoyance, Tony decided that they would land in Trondheim, to change jets.

"I don't want to take my personnel with me into a possibly dangerous situation," Tony said. "The idea is to stop off in Trondheim to change to a smaller, faster plane that we can pilot ourselves."

Erik growled. "Delays," he said, eyeing the coordinates Tony's contact had apparently found for them from the runes.

Tony cocked his head to the side, with a fond look on his face."Even you have to agree that the fewer people we have to worry about, the better."

Erik only reluctantly agreed.

Tony shook his head and went to sit next to Hank. "Remember that plane you helped plan last year?" he asked the young man, who nodded.

Erik knew that the only reason Stark hadn't yet snatched up the bright young mind, was out of respect for Charles, because he would have Tony's head on a plate if he took the young mutant away from his last year at uni. Charles believed in finishing what you began. Besides, as brilliant as McCoy was with engineering, genetics were definitely more his strength. Of course it just meant he went and occasionally spent time in some Stark lab somewhere, cooking up insane inventions.

Everyone needed a hobby, after all.

"We got the second prototype up and running last week and it just happened to be in my production halls in Germany. And I've had it transferred to Trondheim. And it pretty much fits all our requirements," Tony continued. "You up for piloting her?"

Hank's eyes shone, and Erik wondered if they would indeed lose him to Stark when the kid was done with his education. Of course, considering how much they had to deal with Tony on a regular basis, it would be a little like having him moving next door.

Erik watched Raven for a moment, the thought hitting him that maybe, if Hank moved to work for Stark, she'd go as well. Then he shook his head. Charles had his studies and Raven ran the corporate part of the Xavier family business. She had a flair for it, one Charles might have as well, but where Raven had fun in her position of power, it was of little interest to Charles.

An hour or so later, Erik was still in his seat, staring down at the sandwich he still hadn't managed to eat. He had once again pulled Charles' tablet out, going through the numerous pictures that he now knew how to get to. He hadn't been aware of how many personal pictures Charles had taken over the years and kept close. Erik was hard pressed to remember a time where Charles hadn't been carrying a camera around with him. Some of the timestamps on the files were years back.

One of the ones he hadn't noticed the night before caught his eye now. It seemed to be the oldest one on the device and when he looked at the date on it, he fought down a small smile. It had been taken a short time after he had first met Charles and Raven, shortly after he had moved in with them. He knew down to the date when they had turned his world upside down.

The picture had been taken at one of the numerous parties at uni, and Erik recognized some of the faces in the background. The focus of the camera was on Raven, Charles and himself, looking ridiculously young. Faces flushed and judging from the empty bottles on the table, they weren't exactly sober.

Charles was in the middle, squished between Raven and Erik, obviously happily so. It was obvious that he had an arm around both of them and they one each around him. They all looked like they hadn't a care in the world.

"I'd completely forgotten that one," Raven said softly, standing next to him, staring down at the picture. "A friend of mine was at the party and she shot that for me," she continued. Raven knelt down next to his seat, staring at the photo.

"We were happy, weren't we?" Erik asked softly.

"We were like a happy, dysfunctional family," Raven said with a soft laugh.

"You were, you know," Erik said quietly, meeting her eyes. "You were my family. I was so lost back then. I knew I wanted to finish my studies, but at the same time, the murder of my parents was digging away at my sanity."

"Not having had much of a stable family life either - I get what you mean," she said, still staring down at the picture. "When my parents abandoned me, or whatever happened, because I don't remember, Charles adopted me as his little sister. His own family was pretty fucked up, if you ask me, so there was just the two of us, until he came home with you in tow."

"I worried in the beginning if I was intruding," Erik admitted. "You were so close." He had been downright jealous back then.

Raven shook her head. "I went from alone to having one brother, then another. Erik, Charles doesn't bind himself to anyone just like that, it takes trust."

Erik was suddenly aware that she was talking about him admitting that he normally always had a low level awareness of Charles as well as the other way around. It made him feel a little uneasy. She was, in all but blood, a sister to him, but he felt weird talking about it with her. He still wasn't sure she had figured him and Charles out. Hell, they had only just barely acknowledged it themselves.

"Look, Erik," she said, putting a hand on his arm. "Do you really think the two of you could do something that would make me think less of you?"

Erik swallowed hard. "I didn't tell you that when Azazel took Charles, we'd barely started talking about our mutual…" Erik trailed off. How the heck was he supposed to explain that... Maybe if they had not been so caught up in each other, Azazel could not have done what he had.

Raven stared at him for a moment, then gave him a sad look. "Are you meaning to tell me that Azazel kidnapped my naked brother?"

Erik blinked at her in surprise a couple of times, then chuckled, because it could have been worse, it could have been in the middle of the act - and considering how much heat there'd been between them in a matter of minutes... "No, Raven. Please, we'd only just stepped inside the hotel room, your brother was still dressed."

"Would have been a lesson to them if he hadn't been," she choked, and Erik reached out for her, putting his arms around her, however awkward the angle was.

"We'll find him, don't worry, Raven." And he knew they would, he _had_ to believe they would.

"I just wish we had someone on our side who could teleport," Raven said with a sigh. "Seriously, as much as I love the fact that Tony is giving us a ride, and his jets _are_ fast..."

Erik pulled back and kissed her on her forehead, which made her wrinkle her nose a little, but she didn't fight him. "I'm not the world's most patient man," Erik told her, wry amusement sneaking into his voice, "but we all have to just get some rest and prepare for whatever might come next."

"Thanks for the platitudes, dad," she replied with a snort, but she gave him a quick hug and went back to her own seat.

"You're welcome," he muttered to himself, looking outside where daylight had come and was slowly disappearing again. It was late evening already and they were expected to land in Trondheim and change planes and as much as he kept calm for especially Raven's sake, he was as restless as she was.

Erik's eyes slid shut even though he could have sworn he wouldn't be sleeping again until they found Charles. His dreams were a strange mixture of past conversations, most often with Charles and odd impressions of places he could have sworn he had never seen in his life.

He stood in a small chamber, cold, damp walls surrounding him. Metal walls that should have sung to him, but didn't, and Erik wondered if it was because he was dreaming. Occasionally he would be hit with a dream or nightmare where his powers were useless.

He walked to the wall and touched it. Yes, it was definitely metal, but where he could normally feel the composition of it, how pure it was; nothing.

Erik had the impression that he wasn't alone, but as he turned around to see the room, he found nothing but a pile of blankets at one end - not even a door in sight.

The room fell away and he was sitting in that big wing backed chair in the library at the Westchester mansion. In front of him was the chess board, across from him sat Charles.

"It's not what we thought it was," Charles said, pushing his queen forward, toppling his own black king.

Before Erik could say anything, the scene vanished, and he was standing in the middle of a great grassy field. Then the scene shifted again, this time to the apartment Charles had in New York. Charles was sitting in the middle of the living room floor, surrounded by books. "Sometimes hiding in plain sight is the only thing that will work."

His surroundings kept changing and every now and again, Charles would be there and tell him some kind of nonsense. Eventually, it slowed down and Erik was sitting on the stairs of the back entrance of the mansion. He watched as Charles walked across the pebbles paving the paths, moving towards him, but not really getting any closer.

That was the point where Tony woke him up and Erik was torn between annoyance at being ripped from Charles in his dream and thankfulness, because the last scene had been pretty creepy.

"We'll be landing in fifteen minutes," Tony told him, gesturing at the seatbelt that Erik had foregone. "I've been told there's a bit of turbulence, so buckle up."

Erik rubbed his eyes and looked out the window. It was pitch dark and he was beginning to have problems remembering what day it was. Typical when he had skipped sleep and meals for the past couple of days.

To Erik's surprise, they had landed on the outskirts of Trondheim Airport, which turned out to be part of the Royal Norwegian Air Force. Quite frankly, he should stop being so damned surprised at the amount of connections that Tony had. Not that he was complaining. Going through ordinary airport security at this point… He'd really rather not.

Tony called over one of the security guards and pointed at the three of them. "Get them suited up, on the plane, and then we're off."

"Yes, Mr. Stark. Will you require a pilot, because we currently do not have any on site," the man said.

"No, between Dr. McCoy and myself, we can fly this easily enough," Tony said. He turned around. "Follow him, suit up - I've only got a few things to settle and I'll be with you in a moment."

With that, he disappeared into the darkness, towards one of the larger buildings. There was light in the windows and Erik figured it was some sort of administrative building.

"Lead on," Erik told the guard and he followed along, Raven on one side and Hank on the other. They were shown into a hangar with heavy security measures at the door and Erik wondered how much industrial espionage Stark had to fight with on a regular basis.

The guard led them on through a smaller door on the side and although Erik tried to catch a glimpse of the plane they were going to be using, he managed to see only that it was pretty big and black.

"There are flight suits in these," the guard told them, pointing at lockers. "Mr. Stark has made sure that they are unlocked for you and you should be able to find fitting suits." He gestured towards one side and told Raven that those were women's models.

He was gone before they could thank him, and the three of them set out to find what they needed. It was a bit of hit and miss to find something that would fit Hank, but in the end they managed. The flight suits were black leather and Erik quite liked the feel of it, along with the buckles on it and zippers. It was comfortable without being too constrictive.

"You have to wonder what they're used to seeing here," Erik said conversationally. "I haven't seen anyone staring at either of the two of you, and you're both obviously mutants."

Hank grunted as he carefully zipped his suit up, obviously trying to not zip his chest fur into it. "This is part of the Norwegian Air Force, Mr. Lehnsherr. The Norwegian military, air force and navy all have an open mutant policy. Much like Mr. Stark has with Stark Enterprise. When I was working with Mr. Stark for a short while, trust me, I saw people who looked stranger than I do and no one ever commented. In fact, and I'm not sure if Mr. Stark wants you to know, but I once saw half of the Avengers in his office."

Erik grinned. "Stark used to work with Fury, but one is more stubborn than the other and they had a falling out. Fury got custody of the kids and Tony's not supposed to see any of the team members anymore."

"Ah, but…" Hank gave him a weird look. "This was obviously before then," he tried.

"Probably not," Erik replied. Charles had told him all this, having a hard time not laughing. Mostly because Tony had been heartbroken and drunk when he had shared it, maudlin beyond words. Charles had prophesied that it would just be a matter of time before they needed Tony's help again with something and it would start all over again. "Tony just doesn't let go of people he considers friends that easily."

"Who was in the office and why haven't you shared this with me before?" Raven hissed.

"Because I wasn't supposed to tell anyone," Hank said, looking a little ill at ease.

"Share! Who was there?" she asked, voice a low whisper.

"Probably Captain America and Thor - those are the two he tends to drag into trouble more often than not," Erik said with a snort. He had met both of them on more than one occasion and while Charles was quite taken with both, Erik wasn't all that impressed with the God of Thunder, but he'd quite liked Cap.

"Ye-yes," Hank stuttered.

Erik could easily imagine him having been more than a little starstruck. Sure, most people didn't know that Tony Stark had been part of the Avengers as Iron Man and that half the hardware they were using was shit he'd invented on a whim. It still amused Erik that people thought Iron Man had been working for Tony Stark - that they hadn't figured out the two were one and the same.

Just because Tony had been pressured into shelving the suit, didn't mean he wasn't tinkering with it every now and again. Probably often enough to annoy Fury.

"How come you know this shit, and I don't?" Raven asked with a pout.

"Because you thankfully don't get dragged to this or that stupid function by Charles and you don't have to listen to his tales of Tony's occasional stupidity." And because Charles expected him to keep quiet. He knew his baby sister a little too well. She meant well, but she occasionally had a loose definition of 'secret'.

"My occasional what?"Tony asked from the door, wearing one of the black flight suits as well.

"Stupidity," Erik happily repeated. "You should know Charles shares just about everything with me when the two of you have been out to dinner," he warned Tony. "I have to admit it's occasionally quite entertaining." And it was. In the train wreck kind of way.

Tony snorted. "How am I not surprised? The two of you are worse than a married couple," he complained. "Now, come on, you gossiping old hags, we've got a plane to get in the air and an evil lair to find."


	16. Chapter 16

Erik's area of expertise was archaeology and ancient civilizations, but even he could tell that the jet McCoy had helped build at Stark Industries was something special. Sleek and black; it looked menacing. The outer hull seemed plain enough, but Erik noticed, as they walked past it, the surface seemed to shift subtly.

"Nanotechnology," Hank told him breathlessly, as he put a hand reverently on the hull.

"Would you like us to leave the two of you alone?" Erik teased him, not even trying to hide his smile. There was something soothing about seeing someone geek out like that, probably because it reminded him of the times he had seen Charles do the same with an old artifact.

Different object, but essentially the same reaction.

"Very funny," McCoy rumbled under his breath.

"It looks good, kid," Erik said, squeezing Hank's shoulder. "I'm sure with the combined brains of you and Tony, it can only be a smooth ride that will take us to Charles."

Hank turned around and looked at him, worry evident in his feline features. "I hope we find him," he said. The 'alive' was left unsaid, but very clear still.

Erik nodded, his worries growing again. The longer it took them to find Charles, the longer he was in the hands of Shaw. He kept wondering why Shaw had taken him. They had thought from the beginning that it had been the legend he and Charles had been after, but with his weird dreams and Charles trying to tell him something in those...? The big question was, was it his own subconscious trying to get his attention or was it Charles?

"How close are the coordinates?" Erik asked Hank, straightening and taking his hand away from Hank's shoulder.

"They're very specific," Hank replied. "The coordinates that Mr. Stark's contact derived from the runes is a system of caves."

"Near the coast?" Erik asked.

"Yes." Hank gave him a questioning look.

"Well, it sounded like there had been some sightings of an unknown sub around the North coast of Norway." Erik shrugged. "It's possible that Shaw _does_ have a sub."

"These days it's scarily easy to get a hold of submarines, if you have money enough," Hank agreed. "And Shaw does have money."

"Well, we'll see about whatever arsenal he's got when we catch him," Erik said, taking a deep breath.

"You're thinking about squeezing the sub to scrap metal with Shaw in it, aren't you?" Hank asked quietly as they made their way towards the ladder leading up to the entrance.

"It's a pretty mental image," Erik agreed. "You know he caused the death of my parents."

"I'll aid you in any way I can," Hank said, "I remember that he had Azazel seduce Raven in order to get close enough to steal from the mansion."

"You and Raven?" Erik asked, curious, because Charles always refused to tell him any gossip about his little sister.

Hank shook his head. "No, but I love her dearly and no one should be forced to be Shaw's tool against their own family."

Erik took a deep breath.

"And I know that you worry about Charles in more ways than a friend would," Hank said shrewdly.

"Raven works fast," Erik said drily. Not that he had expected her to keep that to herself.

"Oh, I've known for ages," Hank said, a slightly darker color rising to his cheeks under the blue fur. "I've got a heightened sense of smell and …eh." Hank coughed to clear his throat. "I'll just stop now." With that, he almost fled up the steps and into the jet.

Erik just stood for a moment and stared after him. Oh God, how obvious had they been to everyone else but themselves?

"None so blind," Erik muttered to himself before he took the steps two at a time.

The inside of the jet was nothing compared to Stark's company jet, but it had seats and seatbelts and it looked like it had been built for strength and security. Also, the jet hummed with reinforced metal and high tech equipment, almost singing to Erik.

Erik slipped into the seat behind the pilot's seat, leaving the pilot and copilot seats open. He knew that either Tony or Hank would act as pilots. A moment later, Hank slid into the pilot's seat and began a checklist.

Raven sat down next to Erik and reached over to squeeze his knee. Erik realized that he had been bouncing his knee for several minutes, nervous energy flooding through him all of a sudden. He shot her a small, grateful smile and fastened his seatbelt.

Tony was the last one in, and he slipped into the co-pilot's seat. He was muttering at something on the small monitor to his left, but Erik couldn't make out what it was.

Takeoff was… something. Erik gripped the armrests and swallowed hard. If he had known that McCoy was going to bring them from flat on the ground in the hangar to airborne in less than a minute, he would have put his head between his knees and said his prayers.

"He's a good pilot," Raven told him with a mean laugh. "Trust me, but he does sometimes pull some really tricky maneuvers and if you've eaten anything…"

"Yes! Thank you, Raven, that's really what I needed to hear," Erik said with a grunt, prying his fingers off the leather of the armrest. "Is this why the company jet is under maintenance?" Erik asked suspiciously.

"No!" She shot him a glare. "Of course not. The jet has to undergo various tests every now and again or the license is revoked."

"Uh, huh," Erik said with a wry grin. He wisely stopped taunting her, because while it kept his mind off the low flying Hank was doing, it would only needlessly annoy Raven. And she was a mighty opponent.

"So, Tony," Erik said, turning his attention elsewhere. If he allowed it, he would just sit and sink further into his contemplations and regrets of not risking anything with Charles before he had gotten kidnapped. "Does Fury know you're holding out on him and SHIELD?"

"It's a silent agreement," Tony said with a laugh. "It's silent in the way that he thinks I'm hiding tech but he can't really prove it or call me on it." Tony turned his head and raised an eyebrow. "Besides, I never signed anything with SHIELD that meant I couldn't develop things on the side. As long as I don't sell it to enemies of the USofA, they can't complain."

"I don't like Fury," Hank growled over the headset.

Erik smiled a little. "I don't think he likes you all that much either, after you growled at him last spring when he came to offer you a job in SHIELD's research section."

"How did you know about that?" Hank asked, flushing with embarrassment again. And this time the fur did little to conceal it. "You weren't there."

"No, but Charles was," Raven said with a delighted laugh. "Did he show you?" she asked Erik.

Erik nodded. "I don't know much about Fury, but I don't think he hears 'no' very often and I doubt it's delivered in a growl and a show of fangs like Hank did it." Charles had indeed shown him and his amusement at the situation had colored the transfer. Although Erik had caught the mild worry that Fury might try something more serious than just asking if they really thought they needed Hank.

"I was having a bad day," Hank muttered, looking remarkably embarrassed.

"Don't feel bad, McCoy," Tony said, patting his arm. "Fury occasionally brings out the worst in all of us."

Erik sat back quietly, while Tony regaled Raven and Hank with tales of his past clashes with Fury. Erik couldn't help but wonder why Hank hadn't said yes, or at least gone looking for somewhere to work where he could use his full potential. Sure, he was always a good help whenever Charles or Erik needed him and he knew that Raven found him invaluable in the company. 

Of course, Raven knew how to make money and she ran the family company with more flair than Charles would have. However, McCoy couldn't possibly be using his abilities to their fullest. For all that Charles had chosen not to follow in his father's footsteps as a scientist, Erik knew that Charles had made sure that Hank had a laboratory in the basement of the Xavier Corporation, where he worked on his genetics studies. Erik figured that even though it had been a few years since Hank had changed his physical appearance in a lab accident, trying to come up with a cure for his then, in Erik's eyes, minor physical mutation, he still didn't feel confident about working out and among other people.

Which only made Erik glad that Tony had dragged him out to do some co-work on the jet. It could only be good for Hank to see other people than Raven, Charles and occasionally Erik himself.

Leaning his head back in the comfortable seat, Erik let his mind wander. _'Where are you Charles?'_ he asked, more out of habit than because he thought Charles might hear him. Shaw should start praying to whatever god he had, because there was no way in hell that Erik was going to let him get away alive.

In the blink of an eye, he was standing on a beach, white sand as far as the eye reached on one side, and on the other the calmest, most beautiful blue sea.

"Erik."

Erik whipped around, staring at Charles who was standing a few feet away from him, wearing a pair of shorts and that butt ugly Hawaiian shirt that he had picked up one summer during their vacation. It was, however, not buttoned and Erik quite enjoyed the view it afforded him.

Charles dipped his head, a smile curving his lips. "Erik, my friend, how I have missed you." He lifted his head and the smile slid away. "When you enter the tower of ice, beware of the black king. He will sacrifice his queen and you must use that to your advantage."

He reached out to Erik and Erik in turn lifted his hand, fingertips almost touching Charles'…

Erik jolted awake in his seat, finding Raven staring at him. She raised an eyebrow at him. "You okay, Erik?" she asked quietly.

"I… yeah, I'm okay, just… had a ...dream." It was fast fading, no details anymore, but Charles had been there, of that he was sure. And the short 'reunion' left him with a bittersweet feeling of loss. Even though he kept telling himself that they would find Charles in time.

"We're getting pretty close to the caves," she told him. "Time to get ready to set this beauty down."

Erik nodded and stood, accepting the coat that Raven handed him. "How's the weather and how far are we walking?"

"This baby is the newest in stealth tech," Tony called back, "we're landing as close as possible to the entrance of the caves. Probably going to walk around twenty to thirty minutes, depending on the weather."

"Snow on the ground, fairly hard wind," Raven told him, "Tony says we're using rope to keep together, and the weather's bad enough we're going to be glad for the coats. The suits will keep us plenty warm but the snow would get in if we don't bundle up."

"Alright, sorry, didn’t mean to fall asleep on you," Erik said apologetically.

"That's okay," Raven said with a soft smile, "I figure you haven't had much sleep since Charles disappeared."

Erik nodded. There was a flash of his dream, but it was gone before he could grasp for it. Shaking his head, he helped Raven gather what they needed, hoping that they would indeed find Charles and bring him home.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1st of 2 updates for this evening - still doing a few minor edits on chapter 18

It wasn't the first time that Erik found himself in such inhospitable surroundings. Of course he preferred the hotter places, like deserts and jungles, but it was possible they were getting closer to Charles with every step they took, so he wasn't complaining.

The wind howled around them, snow everywhere, and Erik was pretty glad they had Stark on their side. While they were, connected with rope, their full face masks offered a filter that heated the air enough to not sting the lungs. The transparent part was obviously fitted with the latest in technology, because it kept feeding Erik information on temperature, terrain, wind speed and so on.

The suits were warm underneath their outerwear and Erik had only briefly checked pockets finding power bars, tablets and other survival gear packed tightly.

"We're coming up on the entrance in a moment," Tony's voice crackled in his ear. "I think it's somewhere below us. We should start looking for some way down."

Erik wondered for a moment if he could apply what Charles had helped him do in Peru. He wasn't sure if he could push himself as far as they had done together. Of course there were other things to worry about as well; it was possible that Shaw had ways of noticing if Erik let his powers stretch like that.

However, if they didn't find a way in soon, he might have to take that chance.

"We should be right on top of the entrance," Hank said before falling silent for a moment. "If the instruments are right."

"If they're not, I'm going to see if I can feel any voids in the rock face under us," Erik said, "but we can't know for sure if Shaw might notice if I do."

"We might already be in trouble, if Shaw's telepath spots us," Raven put in.

"True, but we have to take the chance and I know you're all capable of shielding because Charles will have taught you just to get some quiet, occasionally," Tony said.

Erik sniggered. Tony was right. A hung over Charles would get really annoyed with people projecting and early on he had made sure both Raven and Erik were capable of shielding themselves. Of course, they could not know for sure if it would be enough, but it would have to be.

Continuing forward, they came to the shoreline, the ground suddenly dropping, and Erik was unsure if they would have noticed if the equipment had not warned them.

"There's a cave down there," Tony said. "It's hard to tell for sure, without better visuals, but it looks natural with some work done to widen the opening."

"That sounds like what we were looking for," Erik muttered, "and how do we get down there?"

Raven tugged at the rope and Erik could just make out the outline of her arm as she pointed a little off to the side. "It looks like a way down, doesn't it?"

"It does," Hank agreed. "We going in?"

"Of course," Erik said, ready to hurl himself down the path. He was beginning to feel like they were losing precious time. Unsure why, but the urgency had been growing for the past hour.

"I'm not seeing any signs of people," Tony said, "no trace of technology outside, but of course that doesn't mean we're the only ones here."

"So the question is, is Shaw here, and if so, are there guards we can't see?"

"We'll have to be really careful," Tony said, putting a hand on Erik's shoulder.

Erik nodded and a moment later they were carefully making their way down the path to the entrance of the cave. Thankfully it was out of the wind and without it, the whirling snow turned to a more tolerable swirl of snowflakes.

The entrance wasn't big, but with the high tech gear Tony had made sure they had with them, they made it there safe and sound, even if Hank had nearly slipped off the path at one point, only saved by his enhanced agility.

Erik was thrice as careful after that. While Hank could react within a split second, the rest of them didn't have those powers. He wondered if Raven might since she was more agile than the average person, but he was just as glad not to test it as they stepped inside the mouth of the cave, eerily dark and quiet after the sound of the wind outside.

"Oh, fuck," Tony muttered from somewhere further on. Erik slipped past Hank and Raven to get to him, the narrow opening of the cave widening into a slightly larger area with more than enough room for all of them.

Erik was about to ask what the problem was, when Tony did another sweep of the cave with the light attached to his wrist. And Erik wholeheartedly repeated his curse.

Right in front of them were several exits, each leading into darkness, none of them any wider then two people could enter side by side.

"Of course we have no idea where to go, do we?" Raven asked, stepping up beside them.

"Nope," Tony answered, clearly as annoyed as Erik was. "But we do have the advantage of the software installed in the masks we're wearing," he said. "It will map where you're going and feed it into the part of the system we all share. Which means we can split up and search as much as possible."

"You never watch horror movies do you?" Raven asked drily.

Erik rolled his eyes. "Raven, if we stay together it might take forever to find Charles."

"I know," she all but growled at him. She sighed and patted him on the arm. "Sorry, I'm just..."

"Worried, I know," Erik agreed. "But we do have to do this, stay in radio contact constantly and anything that looks like Shaw might have come through, let everyone else know."

"Be careful," Tony told them, "your masks will relay any information they pick up to you, from radio signals to unstable walls - don't ignore the feed, use it to stay safe."

"Yes, dad," Raven said with a snort. "Don't worry, we'll be careful."

"You better," Tony told her with a grin. "Erik?"

"All I can tell you," Erik replied, letting his sense of metals in the earth spread out, hoping he wasn't painting a target on his back, "is that it's a vast system of paths and some seem to interconnect. But I can't give you an idea of where we're going or where any of them are leading, I'd need Charles' help to stretch that far." Admitting this only made him miss Charles even more.

"We'll get a map of the caves quickly enough when we start going through them," Tony said with a shrug, undoing the top of his jacket, pushing the hood back and down. "Let's go."

Erik let the others precede him, unzipping his own jacket. Out of the wind it was extremely warm, especially combined with the suit he was wearing underneath. With a nod to Hank who was standing beside him, Erik marched forward, heading into the passage that seemed to lead the furthest down, if he were to judge the sloping of the grounding.

Having switched the flashlight on, Erik continued down the dark hole, with the constant chatter from the others in his ear. It felt... reassuring. He was more used to doing this sort of stuff alone, but he had to admit that having the extra help along eased his worries as much as was possible.

While carefully making his way down through the passage, Erik flicked through the settings of the facial mask he was wearing. Outside it had helped with temperature settings, in here... and Erik had to hand it to Tony. The man was a damned genius with tech. At the sides, to not impede his forward view too much, it showed him temperatures still, along with height above sea level, humidity, oxygen level, and a boatload of other readings.

Another flick of the settings and he hit gold. The map that Tony had been talking about unfolded across his view and he had to stop for a moment, unused to focusing on two things at the same time. The full map was slowly forming as Hank, Raven and Tony went through their passage ways. It was like a slowly growing web unfolding in front of his eyes.

Erik smiled grimly and switched the map off to the side. For now he didn't need that and had to focus on going forward. They weren't even sure if Charles was there, but if it was where the writing on the wall in South Africa had taken them, then maybe it would be where Shaw would take Charles.

And Erik wasn't going to let him just get away with it. He was going to pursue Shaw till the ends of the Earth if necessary, to get Charles back.

The path twisted a few times, but each time Erik checked the still forming map he wasn't heading near the other three. Something tugged at his attention ahead, then was gone again. The first time it happened, Erik stopped and reached out with his powers, not feeling anything but the natural metal minerals of the walls.

The second and third time, he still stopped and reached out, but again, there was nothing. No heat signatures, and nothing specific once he cast his power out to search.

It happened a dozen more times and eventually, Erik pushed it away, not paying it any attention. 

And that turned out to be his one big mistake.

The smell of sulfur hit him at the same time as he felt the metal of buttons and the curved blades, all heralding the entrance of a man he would happily tear apart, even more so if he could bring him back to life and kill him, over and over.

However, he didn't manage anything beyond opening his mouth as the world disappeared around him and it felt as if he was torn to pieces and put back together again.

Falling to his knees, Erik gasped, trying to catch his breath, the smell of sulfur making him gag. He could barely see what he was doing, where he was, scrabbling to get away from Azazel.

He felt ahead of him and there was a rough wall of stone, one he used to haul himself to his feet. Blinking rapidly he turned his head and watched Azazel take form in front of him. The mask still gave him information, but the part where the map of where the others were was gone. A small N/A blinking in the display.

And there was no sound of the others on the radio either.

They stared at each other for a moment. Erik felt the eeriness that, even in semi-darkness with his flashlight pointing at the floor, Azazel seemed to be able to see his eyes and stare right into them.

"Comrade," he said, smiling that grizzly smile of his.

"Scumbag," Erik replied, baring his own teeth. If he could only move fast enough, he might be able to wrap those nice blades around Azazel's neck and force the bastard to take him to Charles.

"No use for name calling," Azazel grinned. "Shaw wants you dead. He tires of your resilience and interference."

"So you're going to talk me to death?" Erik asked, rolling his eyes, regretting it instantly as he still felt the nausea of the teleportation.

"I drop you here, Shaw will not know," Azazel said cryptically.

"To what end?" Erik asked, feeling more than a little confused. "So you drop me somewhere underground where I'll never find my way out?"

"No," Azazel growled. "If you manage to save yourself, you may come for Shaw. I shall not stop you." He paused for a moment. "I owe him only so much." With that the sound of displaced air filled the place, the unpleasant smell of sulfur once again permeating the air.

"What the everloving hell..." Erik growled to himself, only just managing to keep from slamming his fist into the rock face in frustration. He'd been so close to Azazel, who could've taken him to Charles, and Erik had been too fucking confused to force him.

Taking a deep breath, he tried to figure out where exactly he was. No GPS signal, no surprise there. He could feel miles of rock above and around him, the ores of metal running through it, giving him a rough idea of just how deep.

No radio signal, no reaction as he changed the frequency over and over again. The map app in his mask was picking up again, though it had saved his previous map and started a new one. Maybe Azazel had transported him somewhere deeper, but Erik was getting the feeling probably not. There would have been a chance of a signal coming through from the others.

He didn't know Azazel's range, but worst case scenario, he was halfway around the world, halfway _through_ the world. It was definitely warmer where he was, by several degrees. Enough for him to ditch his jacket, feeling sweat beading under his suit. He was in a passageway not unlike the ones he and Charles had found in South America and he needed to travel lighter if he were to get out of there.

And what the hell had Azazel meant by saying that if Erik came for Shaw he wouldn't stop him? Was it possible that he'd have an ally, or at least that Azazel would not stand in his way if, _when_ he found Shaw and wrung his neck?

Pushing those thoughts away, Erik put his jacket down, going through all the pockets, pulling out those little essentials that Tony had made sure they were packed with.

He had to make a makeshift bag from the lining of the jacket, put together by the straps and strings from it. It wouldn't win any designer prizes but it would keep what he needed. The powerbars, the emergency lightweight thermal blanket, the purification tablets as well as the couple of smaller bottles of water he had carried with him. It might not get him through weeks, but he'd rationed before on trips where he'd lost his food and water and had to make do.

"Tony, Raven, Hank, if any of you can hear me, if any of you are within range, be on the lookout for Azazel, he's dropped me off somewhere.... I have no idea where," Erik said, hoping against hope that the signal would make it through, even if he couldn't hear the others.

"Charles, wherever you are, hang tight, I'm coming." Erik closed his eyes. He had to get out of the cave system he was in so he could figure out where the hell he was. He couldn't save Charles if he didn't know where he was, but not knowing his own location was not exactly a help.


	18. Chapter 18

Walking back and forth, letting his power feel the ground and the rock underneath him, feeling the grain of the ore, he finally figured out which way to go, which one led upwards. Of course it wasn't a sure-fire thing. The passage could just as easily do a sudden dip and go downwards.

Erik knew he would have to trust his intuition and his intuition was pointing in this direction. Running a gloved hand over the wall, Erik stopped, then took the gloves off, attaching them to the belt of his suit. Then he ran his hands over the raw stone again. The composition of the rock was... familiar. He wondered if he might actually be somewhere where he had been before. It was more than possible, considering the caves and ruins he'd traversed in search of objects that might interest Charles.

It wasn't lost on him, as he continued on, that he worked much like a pet in that way. He tended to scour the world for prizes and bring them back to metaphorically drop them at Charles' feet. Or in his lap. Charles' lap.

Erik grinned to himself, knowing well what a deranged maniac he must look, but not caring. He was on his own and thoughts of Charles would carry him through this. He wasn't sure if he'd ever tell him that though, when he found him. Because smug was not a good look on Charles.

A few hours later, Erik sat down against the wall, having found a small chamber where the walls were further apart and he could sit comfortably, nibbling at one of the power bars. At this point he'd decided that smug wasn't all that bad a look on Charles. Erik wanted to know if it looked better in the bedroom.

Snorting, he shook his head. If he didn't get out of this place soon, he'd have too many ideas of what to do to Charles when he found him. And Charles might not like all of them. Then again he might.

Of course, thinking about Charles, Erik had to fight his worries. If he let pessimism rule him, he might as well just lie down and give up. Good thoughts, thoughts of seeing Charles again, those he wanted to focus on, wanted to fuel his search.

"Why the hell did you chose this trip to give me what I've wanted for a decade?" Erik asked out loud. "You're the lousiest telepath ever," he muttered, closing his eyes for a moment. Luck was he had ended up with the telepath who cared so much about ethics, he hadn't looked into Erik's mind and seen just how much Erik had wanted him. Sure, Erik had been shielding his thoughts, his wants, but his shields couldn't have deflected Charles if the man had really wanted to get through them.

It didn't matter, though. What mattered was finding Charles. Erik dragged himself to his feet. His muscles complained and he was very well aware that he was in dire need of sleep. What little he'd managed to get in between getting ready and leaving for Norway had been far too little.

A few hours further on he had to admit he needed it though. The passage was narrow, but it was still gently sloping upward. So far he hadn't seen anything that might pose a threat, and he had slept in worse places over the years, really. With a sigh, he slipped down the wall, leaning back against it to get some rest after setting the alarm in the helmet. He couldn't afford to lose more time so he set it for a power nap - remembering that Charles had once told him that NASA had researched the perfect power nap to be 26 minutes.

Waking, he had to admit Charles had possibly been right. He wasn't as muddled as he would have been had he slept for a few hours, but his body was still protesting the abuse as he carried on his quest.

Most of a day and several catnaps later, he felt the change in the rock face and metal traces up ahead. There was something bigger there, a big widening of the passage, a larger cave.

Erik stepped forward, then stopped dead.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me!" he exclaimed, then laughed, his voice echoing through the enormous chamber, bouncing off the pillars. And there, right in front of him, was the back of the damned statue that had dropped him and Charles into the ground not long ago.

Erik shook his head and headed forward, carefully. The light of his flash light was bouncing off the pillars, of which many had crumbled, looking like jagged teeth. The light hit the surface of the statue and he stopped, wondering if it would have a similar booby trap at the back of it. There wasn't much to see, so he carefully made his way around to the side, seeing the gaping hole in the ground where they had fallen down.

"I wish you were here with me the second time as well, Charles," Erik muttered, forcing down the worry of how the hell he was supposed to get from South America back to Norway again, if that was even where Shaw was keeping Charles.

Then he looked up and gaped. The statue was missing much of the face - a gaping hole in its chest. Scorch marks around the hole told him that it hadn't happened by falling stones. It would of course explain how Azazel had known about the location, because it sure looked like Shaw had been digging something out of the statue.

Erik walked around the statue again, back to the side he had just entered from, a reflection up above him catching his eye. Turning the flashlight upward, he used the built in camera in the mask to zoom in as much as possible.

The surface of the statue was smooth, but Erik soon found that there were metal ornaments at the top of it and that he could use his power to hang onto this, lifting himself upwards. Hovering at the height where something had reflected off his flashlight, Erik stared at a small indentation in the statue - a circle of multi colored stone. Actually, several circles, each in a specific color.

Studying it closer, he realized they could be moved, could be turned. The question was of course if he could figure out how to position those rings, and more importantly, what would they do? He could try to get out the way he and Charles had, but he didn't have the breathing gadgets that he and Charles had used the last time, and he knew he wouldn't be able to hold his breath for that long under water.

So this was possibly his only way out. If it _was_ a way out, that was.

The more he studied the circles, the more he realized he'd seen the markings somewhere before. He searched the small database of the mask he was wearing and bless Tony Stark and his little geeky heart, but a lot of the pictures he and Charles had taken were in there, with all the writings. Though, more importantly, the picture they had done before leaving for South America of the jade coin was there as well.

Turning the image over and over until he could recognize each part on the circles in front of him, Erik reached out and tried to turn the outer circle, but it wouldn't budge. With a curse he tried again, still nothing.

Rubbing his fingers over the writings, he realized that they weren't stone and he could have smacked himself. They were metal, and reaching out with his powers, he turned them slowly to match the jade coin.

For a moment nothing happened, then there was a grinding noise, the kind that Erik had long since learned to respect. He held his breath for a moment, but once the noise stopped, there was nothing more. 

Erring on the side of caution, Erik floated around to the other side of the statue, blowing out his breath hard, before slowly inhaling again. The chest of the statue, the area that had been blasted repeatedly had slid aside, obviously better hidden than Shaw had been capable of finding.

It was a doorway of sorts, but Erik could tell, as he turned the flashlight off, that it was giving off light. More than the walls and pillars of the cave were. It was almost ...shimmering.

Then there was another ominous rumble and Erik watched in horror as one of the pillars cracked, from bottom to ceiling, falling apart. And it was quickly followed by another one and another one. Once the supports were falling, chunks of the ceiling broke down as well and Erik realized that there was no other way out save the way he had come and the chest of the statue. A pillar crumbled, blocking the passage he had come from and it made Erik's decision for him.

Diving for the opening, he hoped he wouldn't be sealing his own death warrant.


	19. Chapter 19

The world around him seemed frozen at the same point as going horribly fast. It was the only way Erik could describe it. Like a roller coaster ride without the roller coaster. Around him lights and color flashed, like a bad psychedelic trip.

Swearing as he hit the ground, Erik rolled to his feet, reaching out with his power, expecting the worst.

Staring at his surroundings, Erik wondered if he might have fallen and hit his head really hard. The room he was in was... weird. No one was ever going to believe him, that was for sure. Erik laughed and hit the recording function in the mask he was still wearing. He had to show Charles this when he found him, had to show it to everyone.

He was standing in... well, a chamber, was the closest description he could think of. 

The freaky part was that three of the four walls were transparent. The surface was shimmering and the vista beyond robbed Erik of his breath. As far as the eye reached, nothing but stars and space. Charles had once taken him to the Planetarium shortly after they'd met and Erik remembered the film they had watched that took them through space. This reminded him of it, though it was a thousand times more impressive because... yeah. 

Erik reached out, carefully sliding a finger over the surface, feeling it hum against his skin, watched it shimmer. Possibly some kind of force field then.

Behind him, the wall was solid rock, no sign of any entrance whatsoever. As if he had appeared from thin air.

"Charles, I wish you were here," Erik said quietly, the camera running. "I wish you were here to see this with me."

He stepped forward, feeling a surge of vertigo as two more steps brought him to a section where the floor fell away, nothing but the same stunning view below. Kneeling down, he pressed the palm of his hand against what should've been thin air, feeling solid ground instead. Standing back up, he took a deep breath and stepped forward. Another step and he was standing on what appeared to be nothing.

He put his hand forward again and this time the wall didn't just shimmer, it warped and in a heartbeat an archway formed. Perfectly formed stones rose in a beautiful arc to form a doorway. Pressing his hand forward, there was no longer any resistance.

Looking around the 'room' he was in, Erik shook his head. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained," he muttered, before stepping forward, through the opening.

Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that his stomach wasn't full, because Erik figured he'd probably have lost its contents the moment he walked through the portal. Breath stuttering, he looked around. It was as if he was standing on nothing, as he had been in the chamber, though upon closer inspection, he could tell that what he was walking on didn't reflect the light of the stars and wasn't as transparent as the floor had been. It almost seemed to absorb the light, creating a barely detectable bridge of pitch black darkness.

Erik laughed in disbelief. He would never have imagined he could be standing in a place such as this, walking through the stars, towards what seemed to be a pyramid shaped structure up ahead.

"Oh, God, Charles... if you could only see this. I don't think the camera's ever going to be able to convey what this truly looks like," Erik whispered as he tentatively moved forward. As he found the path stable enough, he picked up pace, or tried to, because he kept getting side tracked by the beauty and tranquility of the 'bridge'.

_'Erik?'_

Erik's steps faltered for a moment, then he stopped and closed his eyes. "Am I going mad or is that you, Charles?"

_'Maybe it's me who's going mad, my friend,'_ Charles laughed tiredly in his mind.

"Where are you? Charles..." Erik took a deep breath. _'Where are you?'_ he pushed his thoughts at Charles, opening his eyes again to step forward, stopping dead in his tracks.

Before him was a shimmering light, the outline of a figure and as he looked, he didn't dare blink as it took shape. Reaching out he laughed in surprise.

"Charles!"

_'I... no, I'm not here, wherever it is you are, I think I'm asleep,'_ the being in front of him said, body translucent and eyes as blue as ever and Erik stepped forward to touch.

With a sob, Erik stopped, his hand passing through Charles. "Tell me I'm not too late, you're not dead, a ghost, are you?"

_'No... I don't think so. I still think I'm asleep or something. I can still feel the tether my astral body, which you're seeing, has with my physical self.'_

Erik raised an eyebrow. "Astral body?"

_'It's possible! It's an psionic projection of my mind,'_ Charles argued, sounding put out and so very ...Charles, that Erik couldn't help but smile.

"Well, I guess I've heard weirder," he admitted, gesturing around them. "Can you see where we are right now?"

Charles lifted his hand and touched his temple. _'I can see through your eyes, yes,'_ he said with a disbelieving laugh. _'Erik! What is this place?'_

"I don't know," Erik admitted. "Azazel kidnapped me in Norway, where we were looking for you, dumped me near the room with the huge statue that you and I found in South America and I... sort of stepped through its chest and ended up here."

_'Wherever here is, I think it's making it easier for me to find you,'_ Charles said thoughtfully. _'I've been trying to reach you since I first regained... well, consciousness, but somehow, when we've been sleeping at the same times, it's been the only point I've been able to find you.'_

"The dreams I've had," Erik said quietly. "All the weird things you kept telling me."

Charles sighed deeply. _'I was trying to tell you that Shaw's people might not be that much of an obstacle. Frost is supposed to make sure I'm completely under but she isn't doing so.'_

"And Azazel told me he'd been tasked with killing me, but dumped me under a mountain in South America instead. Not that it couldn't have been my death sentence," Erik said.

Charles' eyes narrowed. _'What happened?'_

"I'll tell you when we see each other again," Erik said with a grin. "See if you can find the others too? Raven, Hank and Tony were with me in Norway. I'd like to know if they're alright."

_'I might be able to find Raven, as she's my sister,'_ Charles admitted, ducking his head a little. _'But she's long since severed most of her bonds with me, in the name of privacy.'_

"You found me," Erik said haltingly.

_'And why do you think that is?'_ Charles said, lifting his head again, staring into Erik's eyes. _'Oh, I'm waking up, shit, Erik, be careful and...'_ The figure flickered for a moment. _'Erik....'_

"I'll find you," Erik promised vehemently. The figure shimmered and disappeared. _'I'll find you, hang in there.'_

Steeling himself, Erik moved forward, almost at a run, the arresting beauty of his surroundings no longer slowing him. The urgency to find Charles before it was too late was too big for him.

The mask he was wearing was giving off the weirdest input and Erik switched it to hidden since it only served to impede his view as he neared the pyramid shape. It was a huge structure with carved steps in the middle, leading up.

His muscles screaming and his lungs working overtime, he sprinted up the steps, hoping to find something that would bring him out of the place he was in, something that would bring him closer to where Shaw was holding Charles.

And preferably somewhere where he could get the radio contact back with the three others.

The stairs stopped nearly at the top, ending at a double door that would obviously lead into the pyramid itself. Erik stepped cautiously forward, to the door, where a panel roughly two by four feet was inlaid into the doors themselves. He stared at it, wondering if it would be yet another puzzle. None of the pieces would move one way or another and he had no idea if it might be a trap as well.

Touching the underlying structure, he could feel the lock mechanism of the door. And yes, it was very much interlinked with the puzzle on the front door that would have to be solved to gain entrance.

Well, unless it was someone like Erik, who could feel the specifics and traps of the door lock and reach into the metal pieces, pushing and pulling them until they were correctly placed and the doors slid open, silently.

Puzzle games really were more of a pastime for Charles than they ever had been for Erik. He lacked the patience for them.

Stepping inside he found another chamber, much like the one that had let him out into the passageway to the pyramid. However, there was a slight shimmer in the air telling him the walls were pointed upward, much like the top of the pyramid he was standing inside would have been. Each side of the room had several portals like the one he had stepped through, archways that would lead him somewhere.

"Charles, I have no idea where to go," he muttered to himself. Walking from archway to archway, he studied the lines of the arched stones. Each arc had a stone at the top with a symbol on it. He'd walked past all of them several times when he wondered if maybe, just maybe.... He pulled up the image of the jade coin and at the center of it was etched a small symbol that might look like a child's crude drawing of a crown, three points with the middle one the longest.

Erik stared at the one stone arc that had the same symbol at the top. "I'll either end up halfway across the galaxy - if it's not where I am already," he said quietly, "or somewhere on Earth if I'm lucky."

Never one to waste time and knowing he had so little _to_ waste, Erik put his hand in the middle of the opening, feeling the same kind of vertigo that he had experienced when he'd dived through the chest of the statue and the previous portal.


	20. Chapter 20

Colors changing around him, streaks of color and the roar of a wind that wasn't there. Erik would never get used to this, but if it brought him closer to Charles, he would endure.

Landing on the other side, Erik fell to the floor, breathing heavily, trying to fill his lungs with enough air to make his brain work. Lifting his head, he was glad to see no one else was in the chamber he had landed in. With his luck, he could have landed right in the middle of Shaw and his minions and he was in no state to fight.

Kneeling on the floor, Erik noticed that this floor was stone, and looking behind him, there was no portal. There was, however, a great big mural that depicted... Erik shook his head and fell back to sit on his ass.

"Fuck a duck," he muttered, staring at it. Falling back onto the floor, just lying there, breathing for a few moments, before he sat back up. He'd be sleeping a week when he got out of there. He _was_ going to stay in bed for a week and Charles would bloody well stay there with him, even if Erik had to shackle him to the bed.

The mural still depicted the same scene. Either Erik was still not on Earth or what he was in was... he stared at the picture, making sure that the mask's camera was picking up every detail. There was an unseen light source so the pictures he was getting were brilliant.

In the middle of it was what looked like an island, though it looked more like an iceberg in the way that most of it was under water. The sky above it was littered with flying machines and the water below with submersibles.

And the kick in the pants was the fact that Erik could easily tell it was thousands of years old.

There seemed to be a divide down the middle of it, the left side, the sky had star constellations Erik had never seen and if he wasn't mistaking it had three moons. The right hand side had constellations that Erik recognized from his own travels, from his own studies of the night skies when he couldn't sleep on his trips. If he wasn't wrong, it was somewhere close to equator.

No matter how he looked at it, it didn't change the fact that quite possibly, he'd just found an ancient, unknown city. Judging from the writings on the side of the mural... The signs blurred in front of him and took on a more readable shape and if Erik hadn't just walked on a bridge among stars, he might have freaked out more than he did.

It was of course possible that he was just too tired to freak out properly. 

The signs took on shape and he could read them as if they were English. "Atlantis," he whispered. "Charles, it's Atlantis."

_'Erik...'_

The brush against his mind was so very light that Erik almost didn't notice. "Charles!" But it was gone, no answer. However, Erik chose to see it as confirmation that he was getting closer. Forcing himself to rest a few minutes, Erik ate the rest of the power bar he had started hours before, drinking most of the water he had left. He wouldn't be worth much if he passed out from lack of water.

Closing his eyes, he listened carefully, not hearing a sound. At least it meant he had arrived unnoticed - if Shaw was even there, of course. It could be Shaw was halfway around the world by now and Erik had no way of getting to him.

And to Charles.

Getting to his feet, he headed towards the only exit of the room, casting one last intrigued glance at the mural. At the door he found a small fountain that he had missed at first, completely caught by the mural. There was water running through it and the readings from the mask told him that it was clean. Even if it wasn't, he had purification tablets and could use those. Filling his flask, Erik tested the water again, letting the technology in the mask do its job. Clean.

"Stairs, there's always stairs," he muttered to himself as he found himself standing in front of yet more stairs leading upwards. At least he could see the top from where he was, so maybe it wasn't too bad.

He walked up the stairs, trying to ignore how his body kept telling him that it wouldn't take this punishment much longer without proper rest. At the top of the stairs were a pair of silver doors, which, when he touched them, slid aside, revealing a... small room. Erik stuck his head through and spotted a control panel on the wall. Well, there was really no other way out from where he was.

Stepping inside, he reached for the control panel, but it beeped before he could touch it, the small room lighting up, a line down the back of it pulsing. Erik realized that he was moving, and quickly, upwards. So, it was an elevator. An ancient elevator.

Maybe it was about time he stopped poking fun at Ancient Aliens when it was on. Then again, maybe not. Because some of the shit in that program was just too far fetched. Even more so than Atlantis.

Erik could feel how the elevator slowed down and a moment later, it stopped, the doors sliding open to let him step out. Taking a deep breath, Erik stepped outside, onto a flat stone platform, and the view that met him was stunning. He was standing at the top of a tower, looking out over what must be Atlantis. The mask showed him no life signs, but there were still energy signatures here and there. And the elevator had still worked, so it was impressive technology.

Another thing he hadn't been able to feel inside the elevator was the amount of metal in the city. Most of the tower was metal and stone, the city below had more than its fair share as well. It all sang to him, welcomed him. And after having been under ground, under stone, in _space_ (and that one was never going to get old) with so little metal around him, this was incredible, almost like an energy boost.

Erik nearly jumped when the radio in his mask crackled and then went quiet again. Slowly reaching up, he cycled through the frequencies until he could hear the unmistakable sound of Raven's voice.

Taking a deep breath of relief, Erik was about to call out to her, when another voice mingled with hers, and Erik recognized Shaw's voice. It wasn't clear enough for him to hear what they were saying, but he could tell from Raven's raised voice that she was more than a little angry.

On a hunch, he set the map app back to visible and he could have cried as information spilled in front of his eyes. Maps, locations, telling him that they were currently somewhere below him.

Erik grinned as he reached out for the metal, stepping off the platform and letting himself glide down silently until he was standing on a city street, leading towards where he could tell the others were.

Keeping a sharp eye out, Erik wondered where Shaw's people might be. If they were with Raven, whose signal he was still tracking, they were in the enormous building that seemed to be some kind of palace.

The streets were eerily quiet. It was much the same feel that Erik always got when he entered an old ruin. As if the echoes of people long gone were still there, watching any intruder who might come through.

Erik didn't dare project his thoughts at Charles in the hope being heard. Instead, he tried to shield as much as he could, to hopefully avoid Frost's attention.

He wondered if Hank and Tony were with Raven. He still couldn't hear what was being said at the other end, but it was possible that the only radio still working was the one Raven had. He had to believe that the two others were still alive as well. At least the map showed they _were_ with Raven.

Entering the palace, Erik drew a deep breath. The place was beautiful with its murals on every wall, with its high, domed ceiling and the lightsource that Erik couldn't make out. There was no dust, nothing to tell him if there had been anyone here before him.

Well, there was the fact that the next set of doors he came to had been blasted open. And they were still smoking so he could be pretty damned sure that Shaw had come through the very same doors.

Quietly slipping inside, Erik hid behind a massive pillar. He could feel a huge amount of metal up ahead, wiring and a large slab of metal underneath it.

And he could hear raised voices now.

"All this for nothing?" Shaw asked, at a higher pitch than normally.

"No one knows how this works," Frost told him coldly. "And the only one who might figure it out, you insist on keeping sedated with that damned collar."

"Just be careful I don't collar you as well," Shaw told her.

Erik risked a peek and was surprised to find a few faces he didn't recognize. Shaw was there, as was Frost, Azazel and Riptide. Next to them was a young man with blonde hair that Erik didn't know. From what he could tell, though, the kid had a blank look in his eyes and he noticed the collar as well, since he'd heard Shaw mention it.

Leaning a little more forward, Erik almost lost his footing. On the other side of Shaw stood Charles, an empty look in his eyes and a similar collar.

"I don't understand why the collar allows us to control the Summers brat and access his powers, but Xavier is like an empty shell, completely impossible to use."

Erik pulled back behind the pillar, breathing deeply. Charles, Charles was there, almost within his reach. But if he gave himself away now... 

_'I suggest you lay low for a bit, sugah. Don't want to blow prematurely, do we?'_


	21. Chapter 21

Erik bit his lower lip, holding his breath for a moment. He'd never felt Frost in his head like this, but he recognized her easily enough.

_'The little Professor did say you were smart.'_ Her mental voice was cool, though with a touch of amusement to it. _'Now go get your friends out and come back here and help us stop Sebastian.'_

_'And why should I trust you?'_ Erik asked, wondering just how long it would take before she alerted Shaw to his presence.

_'Do you really have a choice? And why are you still wasting time? Go.'_

Erik projected as much annoyance at her as he could, but she was right, he could either attack and possibly lose, or get the others and maybe even the odds a bit. With a silent apology to Charles, he left the building.

Once he was outside, Erik ran as fast as he could, around the building and towards the signal. It didn't, as he had first assumed, originate from the building itself, but somewhere behind it. There was a harbour on the other side of the palace, a landing space for ships and right there was, surprise, surprise, a submarine. Slowing down, Erik wondered if there were any guards.

He felt around for metal, and while he could feel plenty of it, there was very little movement. He didn't know what to expect... As he slowly made his way up the gangway, Erik kept a feel out for weapons, but nothing moved enough to be a guard having spotted him.

Was Sebastian Shaw really that self assured an asshole that he didn't think he'd need guards?

Apparently he was. Erik climbed up the ladder to the entrance hatch, took a deep breath and dropped inside, landing quietly on the floor. No one noticed. There was literally no one there. Going in deeper, he stopped and stared when he first found someone. It was another kid, a girl with shimmering wings. She was just standing there, in the room he'd entered. It looked like a lounge, with couches and chairs. Along one side stood three kids. The girl Erik had first spotted, a boy with red hair and a tall, gangly black youth. They all stood with the same empty look in their eyes that Erik had seen in Charles.

He kept an eye on them as he walked past them, but not one of them moved. And all three were wearing the same collars.

The next room he hit paydirt.

"Raven!" Erik ran to her, heart pounding as she didn't answer him. She was, right enough still carrying her mask, though it hung around her neck, the microphone buried against her suit. It would explain why the sound he'd heard over the radio had been muffled.

She had the same empty look in her eyes, the same collar and the same went for Hank next to her. Tony... 

Erik blew out a breath and knelt beside him, feeling for a pulse and thankfully finding one. A quick check and Erik found a lump on his head the size of a dove's egg.

However, he wasn't wearing a collar and his hands and feet were bound. As Erik undid the ropes, Tony's eyes flickered open and the man tried to punch him.

"Easy, Brainiac, it's me." Erik caught his hands and held on until Tony realized he wasn't in danger.

"Erik! You're a sight for sore eyes," he exclaimed, accepting a hand up, though swaying a little on his feet.

"Careful, you've got an impressive lump on your head," Erik warned.

"Charles?" Tony asked, looking at the other two, still unmoving friends.

"Shaw has him, and I think it's possible Frost is turning against him. Either that or we're walking into a trap," Erik said. "She knows I'm here, she told me to hurry up and get you guys so we can stop Shaw."

"It's not impossible," Tony mused, "she and Shaw were arguing quite a lot before leaving - well, before Shaw knocked me out."

"You're not collared like they are," Erik commented, leaning close to Hank to check the collar.

"It apparently only works on mutants, or maybe they didn't think I was worth it," Tony said with a grin, fishing some sort of small tool kit out of his suit.

Erik didn't want to know where he'd kept that hidden. "Do you know what it does?"

"I think it controls the brain waves of the carrier and there's a small needle in it that presses into a nerve, rendering them completely unable to fight or even move without specific orders from Shaw."

"What is he doing here in Atlantis?" Erik asked as he let Tony have a closer look at the collars.

"It is Atlantis then?" Tony asked curiously, turning his head to look at Erik, "and speaking of locations, how the hell did you get here?"

Erik opened his mouth to answer, then shut it and shook his head. "It's a long story - I'll share it when we get out of here." He gestured at their friends. "Anything you can do to remove them?"

"Yes and no," Tony said, biting his lower lip, looking thoughtful. "I need to retract the needle before removing the collar, but Shaw has a remote mechanism that does that, I can't do it manually. Though I guess we could look for a back-up unit, but I take it we're in a hurry."

Erik reached out with his powers and frowned. "Metal needle, I take it?"

"Oh, you're brilliant," Tony breathed out, pulling out a small thing that looked like a lockpick from the kit. "Do you think you can pull it out when I tell you to?"

Erik nodded. "Yes."

Tony fiddled about with the collar, then said, "3-2-1-go!"

Erik pulled the small metal piece back and away from the skin and Tony snipped the collar off Hank, who blinked a few times in quick succession, then stared at the both of them.

"Mr. Lehnsherr?"

"Explanations later," Erik told him, turning to do the same thing with Raven's collar. "Do we know what Shaw wants here?"

"Not really," Tony replied, snipping off Raven's collar.

"Erik?" Raven blinked rapidly 

"Later," he said with a small laugh. "Maybe we should do the same to the three kids in the other room?"

"Kids?" Tony shared a look with Raven and Hank, then nodded. "Let's go."

"Where's Charles?" Raven asked.

"inside the palace," Erik told her. And while he and Tony got the other three kids out of their collars, Erik explained to them how he had come across Shaw and his minions with Charles and another blond boy.

"That's Alex," the oldest of the kids said, his brown eyes full of worry. "I'm Darwin, and you're....?"

"Friends," Raven told him. "And here to stop Shaw."

"You have my help if you want it," Darwin told her, "Alex is a friend of mine and if Shaw still has him..."

"Frost seems to be changing sides," Erik told them, "but we can't be sure."

"So what do we do now?" asked the girl who had introduced herself as Angel.

"We go into the palace and get Charles, and stop Shaw," Erik said, heading towards the exit. "Doesn't Shaw have any guards with him?" he asked over his shoulder.

"It seems he didn't find it necessary," Darwin said, "I've seen him absorb Alex' plasma blasts, so maybe he doesn't need guards."

"Absorb?" Erik asked as they made their way out of the submarine, and he gave Sean, the third of the kids they'd found, a hand up. The young man was still a bit unsteady on his feet.

"He's a mutant, like us," Darwin said, gesturing at the others, "but he feeds off energy. Anything from a punch to a plasma blast. It won't hurt him, but it makes him stronger. He used what he drew from Alex to level a whole building the other day."

"If we're lucky, and Frost is ready to turn against him, then maybe we can beat him," Tony said.

"Yes," Erik replied, "if." He frowned as they made their way back to the palace. He didn't miss the fact that the others had stopped dead outside the submarine, staring at their surroundings. "Welcome to Atlantis, by the way."

"Son of a bitch," Raven breathed, shaking her head before moving to catch up with him.

"Hank, Tony, let's go," Erik called, Sean, Angel and Darwin staring around them in wide eyed wonder as well.

"Charles," Tony agreed, dragging Hank along, who looked completely dazed.

Once back inside the palace, Erik gestured for the others to stay back for a moment. _'Frost?'_

_'Your timing is impeccable, Lehnsherr,'_ she whispered in his head. _'I'm beginning to see why the Little Professor likes you so much - well, one of the reasons.'_

_'Thank you,'_ Erik thought, before carefully slipping back in behind the same pillar he'd been hiding behind earlier, making sure that his camera was feeding the view back to Raven's mask.

"We're getting nothing from Xavier, are we?" Shaw asked, sounding annoyed. A quick look and Erik's heart almost stopped. Charles was locked into the strange machine at the top of the dais, blood running from the corner of his mouth.

_'Not quite yet,'_ Emma told him, _'We're not sure how to get rid of him, unless you can kill him while I hold him still and I can only do that if we get that blasted helmet off him.'_

Erik looked around the pillar again, finally seeing Shaw and realizing that he was indeed wearing some strange, stupid looking contraption on his head.

_'You get that helmet off him,'_ Frost told him, _'I'll do the rest.'_

Erik watched as Frost and Shaw argued, then tip-toed back to the others who were still waiting outside the room. "She wants me to get his helmet off and she'll do the rest," Erik said quietly, "I still don't know if we can trust her, but we don't have a lot of other options, unless we go in guns blazing and somehow I don't think it'd do us much good."

Turning to Darwin, Erik nodded at the throne room. "When I pull his helmet off, all hell is going to break loose - you'll be wanting to get your friend out of there."

Darwin nodded. "We'll get Alex and your friend, Mr. Lehnsherr, don't worry."

"Focus on Alex," Erik said with a small smile, nodding at Raven and Tony. "Those two will grab Charles."

"How do we get him out of the machine?" Tony asked.

"You saw?" Erik waited for them to nod. "It's got a lot of metal, I can detach him from it when Frost takes on Shaw. You get him and you get him out of here."

"And where do we go?" Tony asked quietly.

"I don't know how far the alliance with Frost goes, but Shaw has that damned sub I found you on - can you drive it?"

Tony just lifted an eyebrow.

"Yes, for a moment there I forgot who I was talking to," Erik said, rolling his eyes. "Seriously, be ready." It felt ...good to be doing something active now, not just trying to find Charles, but actively getting him out and to safety.

They all slipped into the room, hiding along the shadows of the pillars.

"What good is a machine to us, that can control people, if we can't get it to work?" Shaw growled, slamming his fist against the side of the machine, the metal warping under the impact.

"It was never a given that we could make it work," Frost told him coldly.

"I will have to make do with the collars, then," Shaw said.

"Which only work on mutants," Frost shot.

"Yes, and it means I can have my army and control it. Not at the scale this machine would have allowed me to, but still." Shaw stared at Charles for a moment, then pursed his lips. "Maybe we should put you in there, Frost, see if it works."

_'Lehnsherr, now would be a really good time.'_

Erik couldn't get a hold on the helmet, so whatever it was made of lay outside his powers, but he felt his way up one of the coils of the machine, unplugging it and snaking it behind Shaw, catching the edge of the helmet and tipping it off his head.

All hell broke loose at the same time. The helmet clattered across the floor and Erik moved towards the dais.

"You!" Shaw growled, "I ordered you..." He froze in his tracks, body held in place as Frost made a face and a sound escaped her that told Erik that whatever she was doing to hold Shaw in place, she wouldn't be able to do so for long.

Erik pulled the other coils from the machine, careful to not rip anything out that might touch Charles, who was still trapped in it. He curled them around Shaw and held him in place. It might not hold him in the long run, but it earned him a quick nod from Frost.

Raven and Tony were getting Charles out of the machine with Sean's help and Angel and Darwin were busy leading a barely responding Alex away.

Erik eyed Azazel and Riptide, but neither of them seemed to be interested in getting involved - though Azazel cast him a quick nod. Obviously they were waiting for Frost to succeed - or not. At least they weren't getting in the way of Charles' rescue.

As Tony and Raven lifted Charles down, Erik wanted nothing but to go to them, but he had to help keep Shaw in place.

"I can't hold him much longer," Frost said through clenched teeth.

"We can leave him here," Azazel said.

"No," Frost replied, "you know he wouldn't stop till he tracked us down and he'll put something worse than a collar on us, trust me."

Erik shared a look with Tony as they passed him. He dared a quick look at the unconscious Charles he and Raven were half carrying out with them. There were bruises on his face, cuts on his forehead and at his temples, crusted blood on his lips.

Feeling more calm than he had since Shaw had taken Charles, Erik waited for them to leave, then walked slowly towards the dais. "I take it Shaw did this to him."

Riptide nodded, stepping down from the dais followed by Azazel.

"Shaw had plans to use the machine to control people," Azazel said. "Friend and foe alike." He gestured in the direction that Charles had been taken. "The professor was fighting him even with the collar on."

Erik felt warm at the thought. Charles had fought. Of course Charles might not survive, for all Erik knew. He still couldn't feel him the way he normally could.

Turning his attention back to Shaw, Erik stepped up to stand in front of him. Frost staggered down a step or two, but held on still.

Shaw was alive in there, staring out at Erik, hatred burning in his eyes. And Erik knew he had to finish it. Had to kill him. Frost was right, if Shaw escaped, he would first hunt her and the other two down, but Erik wasn't so stupid he didn't realize that Shaw would go for Charles again. And Erik himself. For simple revenge, if nothing else.

Reaching down into the dais, Erik realized it was metal all the way through. It wasn't an alloy he was familiar with but it reacted to him, greeted him. "You killed my parents, Shaw," Erik said, feeling the metal down to the molecular level. 

"You threatened my friends, on more than one occasion," he continued, giving one molecule a gentle push, then another, feeling them move against each other. "You took Charles from me." Erik pressed Shaw's feet harder down against the dais, using the coils to do so.

"I can't let you go free," he said, meeting Shaw's eyes again. The metal under Shaw's feet began to move, bubble, almost as if it were boiling. Shaw's eyes were wide as he began to sink through it, and Erik slowly let the coils fall away where the body was disappearing into the metal's surface.

"Hold him a little longer," Erik said to Frost, not taking his eyes off Shaw.

She made a rude noise behind him, but he could tell that Shaw was still under her influence. It would probably have been easier for Charles to do this, but Erik wouldn't have wanted him to. Holding Shaw would have meant going into his mind and Erik would have spared his friend the agony of being inside something as vile as Shaw's mind.

The walls of the palace seemed to sigh, then shiver, and a few rocks fell from the ceiling. Erik eyed the machine that Charles had been attached to. It was shining a little brighter with each moment. They might not have as much time as he had thought.

The metal flowed around Shaw's chest and Erik pushed a little harder, watching the metal suck him down. Shaw's head was finally under and behind him Frost let out a small gasp, sinking to her knees. Azazel moved forward to catch her and they stepped farther away from the dais.

Erik knew she had let go of Shaw as the man began to thrash and struggle, fighting the flow of the metal, the drag of it. But it was too late. He managed to lift an arm above the dais, covered in metal and this was the moment when Erik let the metal settle, apart from what flowed around Shaw's head, that he left liquid to let it fill his airways, his throat, his lungs, choking him to death.

The only thing visible in the end, was a hand encapsulated in metal, sticking up from the dais.

"Impressive," Frost said, leaning against Azazel.

Erik opened his mouth to reply, but the whole palace shook, and more stones detached from the ceiling, breaking to pieces as they hit the floor.

"I suggest we get out," Frost said, nodding to Azazel.

"I guess that means we part ways," Erik said evenly. He had taken Shaw down and the others had Charles.

"You're welcome to join us," Frost offered, a seductive smile.

Erik gave her a bored look. "You've got all the wrong curves, Frost, sorry. And I've already got a telepath."

She laughed. "Well, we'll be off then. I suggest you leave here as quickly as possible." With that, she held out her hand to Azazel, who reached for Riptide a split second before they disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Erik grinned and shook his head, feeling free as he turned and ran for the exit. He made it out into the main hallways, but a large chunk of the ceiling broke off, blocking his way out.

"Shit!" Erik stared at it, wondering if there was another way out for him. He stared at the blocked passage and shook his head. "Guys, if the whole place is coming down on top of you out there, I hope you're in the sub on the way home," he said into the radio.

_"Erik, where are you?"_ Raven asked, sounding a little panicky.

"I can't get out."

_"We'll come for you,"_ she told him.

"Tony, if you can hear me, the place is falling apart, get everyone out of here," Erik said into the radio.

The line was quiet for a moment though he could hear Raven cursing him. _"The place_ is _falling apart,"_ Tony told him. _"Erik...."_

"Go, take care of Charles for me, okay?" Erik put a hand on the rock that was blocking his way out. The dais inside had been pure metal, but the rest of the place? Mostly rock.

_"We will,"_ Tony promised.

Erik switched his radio off. "I'm sorry Charles," he said quietly. He had to hope Tony and Raven could get Charles and the others out in time."I'm sorry I never told you how much I love you."

"Theatrical to the last," Azazel said with a huff, grabbing his arm and dragging Erik through the vertigo effect of his teleportation.


	22. Chapter 22

Erik stumbled and fell back against the wall of the sub. He heard Raven scream, but he kept his eyes locked with Azazel's. "Thank you, I think," he said, swallowing hard. He'd never get used to the nausea of teleportation.

The Russian just grinned, and disappeared. The sub shook.

"Urgh, wasn't fun the second time either," Erik said, sinking to the floor.

"Erik!" Raven threw herself at him.

"What the hell is going on up there?" called Tony from further back in the sub, obviously working on getting them out in one piece.

"Erik's back!" Raven yelled back.

There was a moment of quiet. "Of course he is," Tony called back. "Always the theatrical asshole."

"I'll let that one slide," Erik said as he stood and made his way back to where they were driving the sub. "I know you're under a lot of stress right now."

Tony shot him a mean look, but ruined it with one of his wide grins. "Well, good to see you again, Lehnsherr."

Erik shared a tired smile with a tense looking Hank. "Can we even get out of here in this sub?" he asked.

"The computer has the log on how they got here," Tony said, "Hank and I can do this. Now go, sit down, before you fall down."

Erik didn't dare think they were out of trouble just yet and shook his head. "Just get us out of here, okay?"

"Working on it," Tony agreed.

Erik walked back to where Raven was sitting on the couch with a still unconscious Charles. Darwin and Alex were sitting on the other couch, with Sean and Angel in the chairs, all looking like death warmed over.

Erik noticed that both Alex and Charles, who was lying on the couch, head resting in Raven's lap, were still wearing the collars.

He wanted so much to go to Charles right away, but he knew once he sat down, odds were he wouldn't be getting up again anytime soon. And he'd like to sit with Charles and do something about that damned collar.

Kneeling in front of Alex with a wince, Erik knew he'd be paying with sore muscles for a while after this little adventure. He gave Darwin a reassuring look before putting his hands just above Alex's collar. Now, Tony had opened the lock mechanism last time, while Erik had extracted the needle. But Erik was sure he could tweak the lock as well.

Pushing at his tired mind, Erik managed to get the feel of the collar, remembering how the needle worked. For a moment nothing happened, then he could feel the needle pull back slowly and the lock mechanism gave a small pop and click. Making a disgusted face, Erik took the collar carefully and dropped it into a nearby box where he could see Tony had left the other discarded collars.

Alex blinked a few times, eyes narrowing in distrust as Erik let his hands fall to his sides.

"It's alright, Alex," Darwin said soothingly. "This is Erik, he helped free us."

Alex's eyes widened a little, and he tried to stand, but Darwin pushed him back down.

"You're looking a lot better already, kid," Erik said. "Is everyone okay?"

"I... I think so," Alex replied. "Thank you, for getting me out and getting the collar off me."

"Don't thank me, we're not out of the woods yet," Erik told him.

Alex gave him a tired grin. "Yeah, I guess not. Still, thanks man."

Erik nodded and stood, wincing as his knees and lower back popped. He walked over to where Raven was sitting. She lifted Charles' head and slipped off the couch, letting Erik sit down before she gently shifted Charle, to rest his' head so it was in Erik's lap.

"How is he?" Erik asked, gripping Charles' shoulder as the sub shook.

"He hasn't been awake since we got here," Raven said, her voice hitching. "And Tony didn't dare try getting the collar off without you to handle the needle."

Erik nodded and put his hand on Charles' forehead. "I just took Alex's off, I should be able to get this off as well."

"Just... be careful," Raven said, rubbing her hand up and down Charles' forearm.

"Of course," Erik replied. Thankfully there were no great differences in the collars and retracting the needle was easy by now. Undoing the lock mechanism, Erik gently removed the collar from Charles' neck and then dropped the offensive tech unceremoniously on the floor.

Erik had hoped to feel Charles' consciousness touching his again, for Charles to open his eyes and look at him, but he stayed where he was, breathing evenly, eyes closed and no mental touch to soothe Erik's worry.

"We could use another driver up here!" Tony called down through the sub.

"Go," Erik said, cradling Charles' head. "Help Tony, it'll take your mind off this for a little."

Raven looked indecisive for a moment, then nodded.

Erik would have enjoyed the warmth of it, if he hadn't been so worried about Charles. The fact that she left Charles in his hands he knew was because she trusted him.

"Do you need anything?" Darwin asked quietly.

"Not unless one of you kids is a doctor," Erik said.

"Sorry, man," Darwin said, "philosophy student."

Erik couldn't help but laugh a little. "Thanks anyway," he said.

Checking Charles' pulse, Erik closed his eyes and leaned his head back. The breathing was even, the heartbeat strong. Of course he should worry about damage to the head and mind, because those he couldn't see.

Erik manhandled Charles until he was sitting sideways with Charles elevated against his chest. He took a deep breath and fished the bottle of water from his makeshift bag, taking a quick sip. It had a minor metallic taste to it, but it felt good going down.

Charles muttered something and Erik held his breath for a moment, but the other man didn't speak again. Erik touched the tip of his finger against Charles' dry, cracked lips. On a whim, he dipped his fingers in the water and wetted Charles' lips.

It was half a victory when Charles' lips parted and Erik could slip a few drops of water inside. He had no idea when Charles had last had anything to drink or eat, but judging from the sunken dark skin under his eyes, he was pretty damned dehydrated.

Erik managed to get him to drink a little, and it did stay down, so Erik put the lid back on the bottle and let it slip to the floor, before making himself comfortable, arms around Charles.

"Come back to me, Charles, please," he mumbled, tightening his hold.

\---♦♦♦---♦♦♦---

He must have fallen asleep, because the next time he opened his eyes, Tony was leaning over them.

"You look like shit, Lehnsherr," Tony told him.

"I could say the same about you," Erik replied.

Tony laughed. "Yeah, I think we all need a week's worth of sleep when we get back." He checked on Charles, raising an eyebrow. "You seem to be very therapeutic to sleep on - Charles is looking a lot better."

Erik rolled his eyes, but was glad to hear it. "Where are we?" he asked, checking Charles' pulse. A little weak for his liking maybe, but at least it was beating regularly and his breathing sounded a lot easier now as well.

"On the way back to the US," Tony replied. "I've let the authorities know that we're on the way. We're heading towards Miami at the moment. I've got a plane waiting for us there to take us back home to New York. Will have to have the other plane picked up for me."

"How did you end up in Shaw's sub in the first place?" Erik asked curiously.

"Would you believe it?" Tony said with a small laugh, "Charles must have managed to switch the GPS on he had in his pocket, because shortly after you disappeared, we picked up the signal, got back into the plane and followed it down to Portugal where we unfortunately ran into Shaw's teleporter - and the rest is history."

Erik smiled to himself. Trust Charles to do his own part.

"Rest, I'll wake you up when we get to Miami, then it's home to New York," Tony said, patting Erik's arm.

"And the hospital for Charles," Erik said.

Charles moved a little. "Now why would I need the hospital?" Charles asked. "I'm voting for Tony's plans to sleep for a week."

"Charles!" Erik tightened his hold on him, as he sat up. He could feel that familiar brush of Charles' mind in the back of his own again, and it almost made him want to cry.

"Easy," Charles said with a small laugh.

Tony helped them sit up and then stepped back. "I think I'll head back to the steering wheel of this thing and let Hank have a look at you - he's better with flesh and bone than I am."

Charles grinned, nodding.

"Seriously, are you okay?" Erik asked, barely daring to touch him.

Charles shot him a shy smile. "What are you doing all the way over there?"

Erik rolled his eyes. "Giving you space in case you're hurt!"

"I'm not," Charles said, shifting sideways until he was almost in Erik's lap.

"You've been out like a light since we found you," Erik said, running his fingers through Charles' hair.

Leaning his head against Erik's shoulder with a contented sigh, Charles nodded. "I remember finding you on that...strange bridge."

"Yeah, that was... a bit out of the ordinary," Erik agreed.

Charles closed his eyes, then they shot open again. "I spent time in Atlantis and I didn't know?!"

Erik laughed softly. "I've got some footage and when we're both rested, you can go walkabout in my memories of the place."

"But still," Charles whined.

"Hush, you'll wake the children," Erik admonished.

Charles looked up again and stopped. "We've gained a few more family members, I see," he said.

Erik shook his head. "Shaw had them." He looked at the four of them, asleep in various strange positions on the other couch and the two chairs. The way that Sean was hanging halfway off the chair - he'd have a hell of a crick in the neck when he woke up.

"We'll figure something out when we get home," Charles said with a yawn.

"You, rest," Erik told him.

"Yes, mommy," Charles drawled.

Erik tilted his head down and pressed his lips to Charles'.

"It is good to see you, my friend," Charles said quietly, his eyes lined with tiredness and dark circles underneath.

Erik just leaned in and gave him another long slow kiss, letting his emotions leak into Charles.

"Do I want to know why Charles is blushing like a virgin on the wedding night?" Tony asked dryly as he came back to check up on them with Raven in tow.

"Depends on how voyeuristic you're feeling," Erik said lazily. 

Behind them, Raven was making gagging noises.

Turning his head a little, he raised an eyebrow. "I thought you would support me having a relationship with your brother," he said evenly.

"I do, don't get me wrong," Raven said with a laugh, "but one thing is accepting you as a couple, which you've always acted as and knowing that sex is involved." She made a disgusted face at him. "That's just gross." Shaking her head, she seemed to lose a lot of her previous tension. "Though I'm really glad to see you up and about, Charles."

Charles gave her a soft smile.

"Voyeurism?" Tony sniggered and squeezed Erik's shoulder. "Depends on your taste in entertainment," he said with a wink. "We'll be in Miami in about twenty minutes, so don't fall too deeply asleep. Hank'll take a look at you, Charles, when we get there. Though you're obviously doing much better."

When Charles nodded, Tony gave him a smile and headed back to the back of the sub.

Charles turned to Erik. "Our passengers?"

"Have all chosen to return with us," Raven said, leaning in to give Charles a quick kiss on the cheek. "Good to have you back, Charles."

Erik looked at the others who were still sleeping.

"I called the staff in Westchester and asked them to get a few rooms ready, as I think these people need rest before they leave to look for their families," Raven said, before kissing his cheek and heading back to the front of the sub. 

For a moment, Erik just looked down at Charles, who was still nestled against him "Are you okay?" Erik finally managed to ask. He still couldn't shake the fact that Charles had been unresponsive when they'd found him.

"I'm good, better than good," Charles said, pushing himself up a little more, leaning into Erik as much as he could without actually sitting in his lap.

Erik tightened his arm around Charles' shoulder and sighed deeply. "A few days off in the lap of luxury does sound good," he agreed.

Charles hummed tiredly.

"Charles…" Erik began.

"I'm okay, just tired," Charles cut him off gently. "Just a headache from fighting the collar and Miss Frost."

Erik took a deep breath, reached up with his other hand and rubbed at Charles' temple.

The noise escaping Charles was beyond indecent and Erik found himself flushing a little.

Erik lost himself in the movement, his eyes sliding shut. He wondered if Charles would ask about Shaw, then realized none of them had.

"Let's not dwell on that," Charles told him, "While I do not condone killing, I can't bring myself to feel bad about his end, and yes, it is in your surface thoughts."

Erik breathed in deeply, his face turned into Charles' hair. It tickled his nose, but just having this, being able to touch…

"It's okay, Erik. I knew Emma was going to aid you in his death," Charles continued. "I think I tried to get that across to you, but fighting the collar's…"

Erik stopped his massage and slid a finger down to cover Charles' lips. "Don't," he said quietly. "You did help me understand it, even if at the time I wasn't sure what you meant." He ran his finger over Charles' lips, feeling the huff of air as Charles breathed out. "Now rest, you've earned it."

Charles just chuckled but he closed his eyes and Erik lifted his hand again, continuing the massage.


	23. Chapter 23

Erik hadn't expected them to get through Miami as easily as they did, but apparently Tony had cleared a lot over the radio, and the authorities that met them in the harbor wore SHIELD insignia, so maybe the bad blood between Fury and Stark wasn't as bad as Erik had thought.

If Erik was feeling a bit under the weather, it was nothing compared to Charles, who seemed to be, even on his feet, still asleep.

Keeping an arm around his waist, Erik just held him on his feet while facing the rest of the group. "How many of you are coming back with us to New York?" Erik asked. "You're welcome to stay at Charles' place until you can make your way home. To rest and maybe make your phone calls to families."

Summers and Darwin, who both looked about as drained as Erik felt, looked at each other and shrugged. "An offer as good as any," Darwin agreed. "Sean?"

"I've already called my mum," Sean said with a yawn. "Raven made the invite and mum said she'd make sure to come get me at the place in Westchester, so I'm in."

Angel just shrugged. "I wouldn't mind a place to crash for a day or two," she admitted.

Hank and Tony came up to them and Hank blushed a little as Raven leaned into him, looking as beat as the rest of them.

"If you're all coming along, then the plane's ready." He said, hiding a yawn behind his hand. "The flight will take roughly three hours, so you can get some sleep on the way."

"I'd settle for something to eat," Summers said. The others nodded. Charles' stomach growled, and Erik couldn't help the snorted laugh that escaped him.

Tony shook his head. "There's food and I take it I'm dropping you off in Westchester." He turned to Charles. "You still have that old airfield in the back of the estate?"

Charles roused enough to agree. "It's been kept clear for our own jet, it should be enough for yours as well."

"It will be, mine's better than yours, needs less runway to land and take off," Tony said with a laugh.

"The Xavier company just needs a jet for transportation - we don't want its love child," Charles shot back, sticking his tongue out.

Tony just snorted. "Yeah yeah, keep claiming you're not green with envy over my toys."

Charles held up a hand. "I do not have the presence of mind to argue with you, my friend, but I do seem to recall you enjoying lending me said toys when I've needed them."

Tony shrugged. "I file that under field testing, Charles, you know that."

"Can we just get out of here?" Charles asked, shivering a little.

"Get onboard," Tony said, pointing at the Stark jet. "I'll just get the last stuff sorted." He paused for a moment. "Just making sure we haven't forgotten anything and yes, I've copied the log and deleted it in the sub. I figure you don't want the location of Atlantis falling into the wrong hands."

"Need a hand?" Hank asked, looking like he just wanted an excuse to extract himself from Raven.

Erik just grinned when Tony gave the two of them an overbearing look and shook his head. "No, you get our passengers settled and tell the pilots I'm on my way."

Charles seemed amused enough as well, from what Erik could tell. 

Hank straightened up and nodded, gesturing for them to follow him. Raven seemed a little amused as hell and she didn't leave Hank's side.

Sometimes Erik wondered at the evils of the Xavier siblings.

"Oh, you have no idea," Charles muttered, amusement coloring his tone.

This time Erik was the one to flush. "Stop rooting around in my head," he said without heat. "You shouldn't be pushing your power like that."

"You're projecting," Charles said with a yawn, as Erik led him up the stairs to the jet. "It's actually harder for me to shield from that than to consciously enter your mind," he said.

Erik had to admit that getting on board the Stark company jet was pretty fantastic. The seats were comfortable, it was warm and his, Raven's and Hank's clothes had been transferred to the jet as well.

"But I like you in tight, black ...whatever that was," Charles mock-whined when Erik dropped him into a seat and made his way to the back to get out of the flight suit.

Erik looked back at him. Maybe he should just keep the suit, but at that very moment, he really wanted to get out of it. It was too warm anyway.

_'Just make sure to keep it,'_ Charles projected from the front of the plane.

_'Pervert,'_ Erik pushed back. _'And stop using your telepathy and get some rest.'_

_'I will when you get back here - you make a much better pillow than the seat does,'_ Charles teased.

Erik allowed himself a small smile, and Hank, who was changing out of his own suit next to him, refused to look at him. Which only made Erik's grin widen.

"You'll get used to it," he said without explaining himself, but judging from the darkening under Hank's fur, Hank had gotten the message loud and clear.

Erik would have loved to take a shower, but that would have to wait. While the Stark jet did have one, Erik wasn't sure he could stay awake for long enough to have one. Folding up the flight suit, he made his way back to his seat, feeling a little more at ease wearing his customary jeans and t-shirt, dropping his jacket over the seat back.

Charles was almost half asleep by the time Erik had detoured to the front to get a couple of bottles of water, dropping them off with the other kids. Raven was deeply asleep in her seat, so he just slipped one into the bottle holder between her seat and the next.

He walked past Hank on the way back, giving him one as well. He brought the last two with him to his own seat, coaxing Charles awake enough to get him to drink some. Slipping into his seat, he put on his seatbelt and put his arm around Charles again, who was nearly back asleep already.

Hank checked Charles' vitals, took a few blood tests and declared that apparently the only problem he could detect without fancy tech, was dehydration, and that Charles needed food and rest.

The crew made their rounds, but Erik was too damned tired to ask for more than a couple of power bars. He could tell that the four extra guests they had picked up were taking advantage of the service being offered. He didn't blame them. Obviously being held by Shaw meant minimum food and rest.

Erik's stomach growled and he was surprised when Charles dropped a hand from his side to rest it on his abdomen, rubbing it lightly.

Erik unwrapped one of the power bars and put his free hand on Charles', stilling it. If Charles kept that up, Erik knew he would get pretty damned uncomfortable.

A small, sleepy chuckle escaped Charles.

"If you're awake enough to tease, Charles, are you awake enough to eat?" Erik asked quietly, still not releasing the captured hand. Taking a bite of the bar, he closed his eyes. Okay, maybe he was a little more hungry than he had first thought.

"I could do with a bite or two of that," Charles said with a yawn, shifting to sit a little more upright, though still leaning heavily on Erik.

Erik held the bar to his mouth and Charles bit off a large piece, more than half of it, really.

"May you choke on it, you glutton," Erik mock growled before eating the rest of it. Looked like he was going to have to guard his food whenever Charles was around.

"Hmmmm," was all Charles said, grabbing Erik's bottle of water as he had already finished off his own.

"I can see how this relationship will be," Erik lamented. "I'll never get a full meal, will I?"

"And where's the difference from what we already had?" Charles said with a small laugh. "I've always nicked your food."

Erik made a noncommittal sound. It was true. There probably would be little changing in their relationship except.

A flush crept up his face and he couldn't have stopped his grin widening even if he'd tried.

And he would have to get home more often than he did now. Maybe he should start thinking about another line of work? Of course he would miss the adventures, but then again, how could he…

"Stop thinking so loudly," Charles whispered, amusement evident in his voice. "We'll talk about all that later, but I don't want you to stop what you're doing - if anything, I want to join you more often. I had fun in Peru."

"You would," Erik said with a snort. "There are days where you're a worse adrenalin junkie than I am."

"It's not the adrenaline," Charles said defensively, "I just like the puzzles."

"Uh huh," Erik said, not believing one word. He also pushed a rather suggestive image at Charles.

"I am never, in a million years, dressing up as Lara Croft," Charles said, sounding vaguely horrified.

"You did that year for Halloween," Erik argued. And it had been the sole source of that suggestive image.

"On a dare, because you were going as Indiana Jones and we both thought it would be a fun idea," Charles said defensively.

"I kept the fedora," Erik argued.

"There's a hell of a difference between shorts that short and a hat!" Charles said with a snort.

"But you looked damned fine," Erik argued, tightening his hold around Charles.

Charles just chuckled at that. "Alright, I might be convinced to wear it in the bedroom, but I'm sure as hell not going anywhere dressed like that again."

"That's okay," Erik readily agreed. He would not want anyone else to get that good a look at the goods anyway.

Charles slapped his thigh weakly. "Stop that."

Erik grinned. He sat still for a few minutes, just... resting and enjoying having Charles back. Of course there were still things unsolved, things that might prove a problem in the future. "Charles, those collars…"

"I know," Charles agreed. "We might have to throw some research into finding out if anyone else has the tech to do that - Hank and Tony have the collars and I know they'll work hard at figuring them out - as well as where they came from."

"Not to mention Frost and her friends," Erik said.

"There is that, but for now, I think they just want to lay low. Frost said that while she agreed with Shaw on a lot, the moment he had introduced the collars and actually slapped them on mutants… I think she knew that there was always a risk of Shaw turning on her as well."

"It wasn't a risk," Erik said, "it was just a question of time."

Charles nodded. "Shaw wanted me because if controlled, I could work the machine and through that control everyone else - Mutants _and_ Humans."

"Shaw always was a sick megalomaniac," Erik growled.

Charles lifted a hand and cupped Erik's face.

Erik, taking the hint, leaned down as Charles turned his head up.

"Guys, really, you're not exactly alone," Tony said as he headed past, unzipping his flight suit as he went.

Erik eyed the expanse of bare skin as Tony passed them. Not that he'd ever go for Tony, but… He opened his mouth to give him a mock invite to join, but Charles' hand tightened on his jaw.

_'I don't share,'_ Charles growled in his mind, pulling Erik in again. And this time there was nothing soft or comforting about the kiss.

Erik shut his eyes and fought back a groan. If there ever was indecent, it would be Charles trying to eat him alive at that very moment.

When he finally pulled back, Erik could do nothing but stare down at Charles. "Possessive much?" he finally managed to ask.

Charles looked torn between embarrassment and pride, but eventually he just ended up looking rather sheepish, touching his lips and a small "Oops," may have escaped him.

Erik did not even look around to see if any of the others were staring at them, because he really didn't give a rat's ass. All he could think about was coaxing the Charles he had just glimpsed out again. He hadn't expected Charles to lose his calm around strangers and friends alike. In the hotel room in Peru where they had been alone, but they were really not…

Charles blinked in surprise a few times, then wordlessly drew Erik's head down again, and Erik followed more than willingly.

This time it was a nice mix between the two kisses. The softness of how Charles felt and Erik would never get over having this with a telepath, being able to feel and feed off each other like this. The slow, simmering heat of that hotel room and the possessiveness that had made Charles react a moment earlier.

It was so strangely domestic to just kiss, nothing below the neck apart from Charles' one hand rubbing Erik's knee and Erik's arm around his waist. And for the kisses to slow enough until they stopped, Charles halfway asleep.

"If it's any consolation," Tony said when he returned, smirking at them before he took his seat on the other side of the isle, "you make a sickeningly adorable couple."

Erik just stuck his tongue out at him, holding Charles as close as the seat belts would allow them.

"Don't encourage them," Raven said sleepily from her seat, as she had obviously woken up when Hank had slipped back in his seat.

"I think it's adorable," Tony said. "And you owe me for our wager," he told her.

"What wager?" Erik asked, almost afraid of the answer.

"Whether or not the two of you numbskulls would figure out that you might as well _be_ an old married couple," Raven said evilly. "And I bet against you, because you're both stubborn as mules!"

"Thank you for that show of faith… both of you," Erik growled, accepting a blanket that one of Tony's assistants offered him before leaving them alone again. He took his time spreading it over Charles' body, making sure he was covered.

"You're welcome," Tony said with a satisfied sigh before sitting back in his seat, working away on the small computer installed in the panels in front of him.

"I hate you," Erik muttered, closing his eyes and holding onto Charles.

"I know, I know," Tony said.

Erik shut his eyes and let himself be lulled into sleep by the sound of the engines, the hum of metal around them and Charles' warm body next to his.


	24. Chapter 24

"It's been ages since we've been here," Charles told them apologetically, gesturing at the huge mansion. "But the staff has made sure there are rooms ready for you all and there's food in the kitchen." 

Walking up the front steps, Erik kept an eye on Charles, because even with the nap during the flight, he looked about ready to drop.

"The staff has headed off to bed," Charles continued. "But there's a microwave and the food is in the fridge…"

"Charles, I'll take them there, go get some rest," Raven told him. "You look dead on your feet."

"I can't just," Charles began.

"Are you hungry or do you want to go straight to bed?" Erik cut in. It wouldn't be the first time he and Raven had tag-teamed Charles when the man had been working through night and day for some research paper or another. "And remember that Hank said you needed food."

"I… could eat," Charles said quietly. "But…"

"Good, now, here's the deal," Erik said, working through it. "You go up to your room, start the bath running, I know you want one, you've been projecting for the last hour." Erik didn't mention that there had been a lot more in that projection than just the urge to get clean. "I'm going to go with Raven and the boys to the kitchen, and get something for you to eat and I'll bring it up."

Charles opened his mouth to argue, but all that came out was a yawn.

"Don't argue, Charles, or I will carry you up there," Erik warned, just daring Charles to argue with him, projecting the image of himself carrying Charles over the threshold and up the stairs. 

Bridal style.

Charles whipped around, nearly losing his footing. "You wouldn't dare," Charles said.

"Try me," Erik said drily. Never mind that he was far too tired to do so.

Obviously Charles didn't hear that, because he shot Erik one last annoyed look and then agreed.

Erik ignored the snickers and weird looks he was getting, following the others into the main hall as Charles headed up the stairs.

"I'll show you the rooms first," Raven said, smirking at Erik. "Then we'll get something to eat." 

Darwin, Alex, Hank and Angel dutifully followed her up the same stairs Charles had disappeared up, and Erik quickened his steps to get to the kitchen so that he could gather food without having to work around the others.

It spoke volumes as to how tired Charles was that Erik could barely feel him at the edges of his mind. Just a low level hum of exhaustion. So something simple to eat, Erik told himself.

Opening the fridge, he found just what he was looking for among the plastic containers. Good, thick tomato soup with noodles and Erik knew that it would be old Mrs. Willerby who had been at work. Because the only ones eating that stuff were Charles and him and she had fed them this often enough when they had spent time in the Westchester mansion.

Erik still refused to call it a house, no matter how many times Charles had tried to make him. He knew that Charles and Raven had had little of the family life that Erik had known in his childhood, but Erik liked to think that the holidays and long weekends they had spent there over the years, as adults, had softened the memories.

Pouring the soup into two bowls, he set them in the microwave and dug around until he found the fresh bread. Two thick slices went onto the plates on the tray he took from its nail on the wall. Then the two bowls when the microwave pinged.

Erik remembered the first time the siblings had brought him there. To them it was merely a place to stay and while Erik had instantly known that Charles had few positive memories of the house, the grounds with the large forest areas and large grassy fields were what drew him back there every once in awhile.

Allowing himself a small tired smile, Erik remembered that they had made their own memories while in the mansion and it seemed almost as if every time they had returned, it had felt a little warmer, a little more welcoming. The large library in the west wing with its chess set where Charles had taught him how to play and where they had gotten so roaringly drunk the night Erik had won over him the first time - that the hangover the next morning had been just as epic as the drinking itself.

Using the metal handles and the band of steel around the tray, Erik lifted it easily with his abilities. He was far too tired to try to carry it normally, and he knew he'd lose half of it on the way up the stairs.

Holding the tray level, he opened the fridge again and pulled out a couple of bottles of water and started his trek up to the second floor of the mansion.

He met the kids who were on the way down. Erik was quite glad that he wasn't trying to juggle the tray in his hands when they thundered past him, barely giving him the time of day and obviously focused on getting fed. 

Raven gave him another smirk, and Erik just rolled his eyes at her. "Grow up," he growled.

Which only earned him a snort. She did however suddenly stop a few steps further down, turning around. "Erik?"

"Yeah?" Erik stopped and turned to face her.

"Take good care of him, yeah?" She shrugged. "I mean, he's my brother."

"Don't I always?" Erik asked, quietly. "Like we take care of you and you of me?"

Raven gave him a small smile. "Yeah, but there's no way I'm contemplating taking care of him the way you are."

Erik raised an eyebrow. "I should hope not," he replied drily.

Raven's laughter followed him all the way up the stairs.

Brat, he thought to himself. He went along the hallway until he reached Charles' room. Normally his would be the next one up, but after all the opening up they had done, all the admissions they had made, Erik knew Charles would take it personally, if Erik didn't stay with him from now on.

And that was just the way he wanted it.

Erik pushed the door mechanism without touching the door and pushed it open, following the floating tray inside before closing the door again, turning the tumbler of the lock on a whim. There was no way he was having anyone walk in on them or interrupting them. Even if they were just going to be sleeping.

Erik allowed himself a small smile at the sight that met him.

"Charles, really, I can hear the water running and you're just sitting right up, asleep," he scolded, levitating the tray through the door of the bathroom. He knew exactly what he wanted to do and eating while soaking would take care of both.

Charles barely looked up, just sat slumped on the edge of the bed, wearing the t-shirt and jeans he'd changed into on the flight.

Erik shook his head and put the tray on the wide ledge next to the tub that was full enough to shut it off. He tested the water and decided that taking five minutes to undress Charles and himself would get them the perfect temperature.

Getting Charles out of the clothes was a bit of a challenge, but it was nothing Erik hadn't done before when he'd been drunk. The inattentiveness on Charles' side was about the same.

Undoing and pulling the boots off, Erik sat them aside, the jeans followed and so did the underwear. He tried not to focus too much on the fact that they were undressing for a bath and bed and not for sex, but Erik figured they would have plenty of time for that the next day. For the time being getting clean and sleeping were the most important parts.

Charles swayed on his bare feet as Erik got him to step out of the jeans and underwear pooled around his ankles and he made him sit back down for a moment while he got undressed himself. There did not seem to be any injuries to Charles, but Erik had every intention of checking that later.

"'m about to crash," Charles muttered sleepily.

Erik guided him out into the bathroom. "Not until you've eaten and had a soak," he told him.

"Stay?" Charles said. Not plaintive or anything, just a tired request.

"I'm not going anywhere," Erik told him, getting a rush of joy from Charles.

Helping him into the bathtub, Erik held onto Charles until he was sitting down, before climbing in behind him. It felt fantastic and so damned right. The water may have been just this side of too hot, but the way it heated his muscles all the way through, it was so good.

Not to mention the heat and weight of Charles leaning back into him.

It was a bit of a battle, but Erik still managed to get Charles to eat a whole bowl of soup and both slices of bread. He drank down his own bowl of soup, enjoying it warming him from the inside. He had missed the kind of good old-fashioned home cooking that they were always treated to when in Westchester.

Setting the bowl down with Charles' on the tray, he closed his eyes and held onto Charles, gently running his hands from the water and up his chest.

Charles slipped further into the water with a soft sigh, head leaned back on Erik's shoulder.

"Won't be any fooling around tonight, will there?" Charles asked with a yawn, squirming a little to get comfortable.

Erik shook his head in wonder. "Charles, if I weren't in here supporting you, I would fear you'd drown."

"I know, I know, but…" Charles sighed deeply. "On the plane I wanted so much to, but now…"

"We'll have time when we've slept." Erik pressed his lips to Charles' wet hair. "You've had a busy few days and so have I. I doubt you've had more sleep than I have and I know I haven't had enough."

"But I feel like we're wasting time and I want so much and I'm just annoyed that my body seems to have given up," Charles said with what sounded almost like a whine to his voice. He shifted, sitting up a little straighter. He took hold of Erik's hand and pushed it down his abdomen, under the water.

"Charles…" Erik took a deep breath, feeling his own tired body reacting to Charles wriggling back against him, his cock sliding against the cleft of Charles' ass.

"Nothing elaborate, Erik, I just…" Charles trailed off, pushing Erik's hand down against his erection. "I need…"

"I know," Erik huffed out. "Nothing elaborate - I can do that." He was such a fucking push-over when it came to Charles. He knew they would both benefit from just soaking and then getting some sleep, but how could he ever tell Charles no?

For a moment, all he heard was the soft exhalation from Charles and then there was a whimper, ending in a moan. "Erik…"

"Hush, just let me take care of you." Erik put his free arm around Charles' waist, pressing the palm of his hand against Charles' abdomen, rolling his own hips against Charles' ass while he tightened his grip on Charles' erection, building a slow rhythm. He was getting to touch as much as he wanted to and he was really too tired to fully appreciate how Charles felt against him, hot and hard in his hand.

Charles head fell forward, his breathing increasing. "Not gonna last," he whispered.

Erik pressed his mouth against the knob of Charles' spine, right where his neck bent. There was still a red mark from the needle, but Erik refused to think about it. "Just let go."

Shaking in Erik's arms, Charles whimpered, letting go of Erik's hand and digging his fingers into Erik's thighs instead, spread on either side of his body.

Erik breathed in hard as he felt Charles' orgasm rushing through them both, but his own tired body just did not follow that fast, so he was still almost painfully hard when Charles slumped in his arms. He gentled his strokes and made sure Charles did not slide into the water.

Leaning back, Charles turned his head to kiss Erik, looking and feeling less tired than before.

"Most people get sleepy from sex," Erik said drily. "You look like you've gotten your second wind."

"It won't last," Charles laughed shakily. "Hang on a second," he said, squirming around in the tub, water sloshing over the sides.

"You don't have to," Erik tried to say. Really, he was so tired he wasn't even sure he would have the energy to take care of his own erection. And it spoke volumes about his tiredness that he just didn't care.

"Shush, you," Charles said with a soft laugh, somehow having managed to twist around and straddle Erik's lap. "You've been taking care of me since you got us out and I think I want to spend my second wind making you feel good."

"Charles, I don't think you could manage to _not_ make…" Erik began, but the rest ended in a moan as Charles closed a fist around his cock and leaned in to swallow any arguments Erik might have had.

The heat of the water around them made Erik a little dizzy and all he could focus on was the feel of Charles' fist around his erection, torturously slow movements up and down, but Charles had the right grip, tight enough to draw whimpers from Erik that he would deny at any other point. Not to mention his sucking on Erik's tongue was going to drive him crazy. But that very moment Erik was too tired, felt too fucking good and still had trouble trusting that he really had Charles right there, naked and way beyond willing.

"You feel so good," Charles choked out, when he broke the kiss, his hot breath bursting against Erik's mouth.

Erik put one hand on Charles' waist and the other behind Charles' head, guiding him back down for a long, deep kiss. There was no hurry in it, just pure, lazy pleasure.

"I want to wake up with you wrapped around me in the morning," Charles whispered between kisses. "I want to wake up to you in the middle of the night. I want to have sex on every flat surface of this house, of the apartment in New York…"

"Charles, you're babbling," Erik choked out, but in truth he loved it. He wanted nothing more than to have what Charles wanted.

"I want you to wake me up for sex in the middle of the night," Charles gasped into his ear, his hand moving faster on Erik's cock. "Wake me up _with_ sex."

Erik swallowed hard, feeling his body reaching its limit. The last words had been accompanied by a lewd image and Erik could tell that the future would be pretty damned interesting if a horny, tired Charles could manage that. Because if that was now, what the hell couldn't he manage when he was wide awake?

Charles squeezed one last time, twisting his hand around the head of Erik's cock and that was it. Erik's whole world exploded into tired white streaks, burning through his mind. Gasping he rested his head on Charles' shoulder. 

Charles, who was still gently working his hand up and down, licked at his ear.

Erik reached down and gently stopped his hand. "Charles, too sensitive, please…," was all he could get out.

For several minutes they simply stayed like that, leaning into each other, trying to catch their breaths.

Erik realized that they should really just finish up their bath and get out so he grabbed the shampoo and rubbed it into Charles' hair, enjoying the soft happy noises that he was making. Obviously Charles had a thing for having his scalp rubbed and massaged. Getting the shampoo rinsed out was a bit of a challenge, but Erik still managed to guide Charles down enough to do so.

Reaching up to get his own hair clean made his arms ache, but it would be worth it. Feeling clean again.

Erik pressed a kiss to Charles' head and Charles lifted his head to meet Erik's eyes. And for a long while, they just stared at each other.

"I'm not sure I can get out of the tub," Charles argued sleepily, when Erik prodded him. 

"Have to," Erik said with a laugh. "We'll drown if we fall asleep out here." He stole a quick kiss. "And we'll end up looking like prunes if we don't get out any time soon."

"Spoilsport," Charles said with a yawn, but he still got shakily to his feet, waiting for Erik to give him a hand out of the tub.

Toweling off took ages, but Erik didn't mind. If anything, it was amazing to be allowed to touch Charles like that, drying him and listening to the contented noises escaping him when Erik dried his hair, roughly rubbing the towel over the wet strands.

Erik let out a sigh when they were finally curled up in the bed together. Warm, bare skin against skin and Erik wasn't surprised that the last he heard was Charles' soft snoring.


	25. Chapter 25

Erik woke feeling way too warm. It took a few moments before he realized just why and he just couldn't help himself, a wide grin spread on his face.

He was in Charles' room, in Charles' bed and Charles was sleeping spooned up behind him. The possessive little bastard had one hand loosely curled around Erik's morning erection.

Erik rolled his hips back a little, enjoying the feel of Charles' hardness pressing between his ass cheeks. A few more times and Erik whimpered when Charles' hand tightened around him and he bit into Erik's shoulder.

"Ah!" Erik jolted forward, but didn't get very far, Charles' hold on him still pretty tight. The only thing he managed with that move, was pressing his ass harder back against Charles and basically presenting it very nicely to Charles.

Charles' laughter was clear and loud and Erik realized he sounded way too awake for Erik's own good.

"How long have you been awake, you bastard?" Erik ground out, digging his fingers into the mattress and shamelessly pushing back. It felt amazing, the heat and hardness of Charles' erection sliding against his skin.

"Long enough to enjoy your slutty attitude," Charles said between laughs, pushing against him and moving his hand teasingly up and down.

"Hey, it's been ages since I've had real sex and waking up with your hand on my cock and your cock rubbing against my ass," Erik moaned, "how the hell can I react any other way? I'm not a saint, Charles."

"So you're saying it could have been anyone and you'd still be acting like this?" Charles asked evenly.

Erik froze. Then he fought back a small grin. "Charles, to tell you the truth, it's been years since I last had sex with anyone and it's been your fault all along."

Charles squeezed him and grinned when Erik just pushed back with a happy moan.

"How the hell is it my fault that you haven't gotten laid?" he asked.

"Because every time I looked at someone and considered it, I kept thinking, 'no, not Charles, why bother'," Erik admitted, feeling a little embarrassed, pressing his flushed face into the sheets.

"That's sorta sweet… in a warped way," Charles said quietly. "It's not like I've gone and chased after co-eds for ages, even if they would serve themselves up on a platter on my office desk."

Erik twisted around, looking back at him. "Yeah, but at least it's not been because…." He trailed off. "Oh."

Charles rolled his eyes. "Yeah, oh. Seriously, Erik, we could have been doing this for ages and neither of us dared take the chance."

"So we're making up for lost time," Erik agreed, wriggling back to get Charles to _do_ something.

"Like you wouldn't believe it," Charles said, pulling him around onto his back before rolling on top of him. "So, tell me Mr. Lehnsherr, top or bottom?"

"Either, both," Erik said, grinning up at him, letting his thighs part to allow Charles to slide down between them. "I'm easy."

"Knew _that_ already," Charles teased. "I don't care either, so whatever we feel like."

"Whoever gets the upper hand, you mean," Erik said with a leer, rolling them over and pinning Charles to the bed. He sat up and wriggled back until he was seated perfectly with Charles' cock rubbing up against his ass again.

"I'm not stopping you if you want it this way, Charles said with a wink. "There's lube in the top drawer."

"When the hell did you have time to stock up?" Erik asked incredulously.

"I got it out of the bathroom when I went for a pee in the middle of the night. I had my hopes." Charles put his hand on Erik's hips and drew circles with his thumbs.

"And considering you're barely ever here, you keep lube…," Erik just shook his head.

"And condoms," Charles said with a lazy grin. "And I stocked up when we were here during the summer, because I was sure you were gearing up to making a move on me."

"I… thought about it," Erik admitted, leaning sideways to get to the drawer. This put him closer to Charles, who kissed along his upper arm, licked at the bicep because it was conveniently in front of his face.

"You've got nice arms," Charles said, lifting a hand and tracing the same line of muscle that he'd just licked.

Erik shivered and reached into the drawer blindly, pulling out a handful of condoms and a tube of lube. "You, behave yourself," he told Charles sternly, but he knew he ruined it with the stupid grin on his face. He held his index finger warningly in front of Charles' face.

Charles just lifted his head and sucked the finger in to the root.

Erik's cock throbbed at the sight and for a moment he considered skipping his plan and just fucking Charles' mouth. Judging from the darkening of Charles' eyes, he wasn't opposed to the idea.

Then he shook his head and put one condom sachet on Charles' chest, popped the lid on the lube and spread some of it on his fingers. Then a little more. "It's been a while," he said with a shrug, when Charles shot him a questioning look.

Wondering what it would do to Charles to know… Erik reached behind himself. "I used to do this, when I was away, do this to myself and think about it being you."

Charles swallowed hard and his hands on Erik's hips tightened almost painfully.

"I'd have lube with me, lay down in some hotel room on the bed. Sometimes, often, actually," he continued, closing his eyes as he pushed the first finger in, "after I'd been on the phone with you."

The sharp inhalation from Charles told him it was working very well.

He worked another finger in, breathing evenly and willing his body to relax and his libido to be patient. "I'd lie there, still with the echo of your voice in my ears, and wonder what it would be like if it was you, doing this to me."

A guttural sound escaped Charles and he snatched the lube from Erik, coating his fingers on one hand and slipping it behind Erik's back. Strong fingers slid against Erik's where he was pushing them into his body. He nodded at Charles. Instead of pushing a third finger in, Erik kept up the two fingers and Charles pushed one in alongside them.

Erik gasped at the heat of it, the slight burn. Keened under his breath when Charles suddenly decided that counterpoint to Erik's thrusts would be more fun.

"Three have to do," Erik gasped softly. "Come on, open it," he pushed the condom further up Charles' chest. While Charles was busy, he pushed back until he had full access to Charles' cock.

Erik leaned down, lifted the cock up from where it was lying flush against Charles' abdomen and swallowed it halfway down. It almost went all the way down when Charles tried to arch his back in surprise. Pulling back up, Erik glared at him. "Get the plastic off that thing and we can get on with it."

Charles just nodded, eyes looking a little glassy. He did, however, finally manage to wrestle the condom out of the wrapping it was in.

Erik noticed that there was a fine tremor to Charles' hand and he realized that he was fighting to hold back just as much as Erik was. He closed his hand around Charles' cock and held it in place while he rolled the condom down over the head. He looked up and held Charles' gaze while he slowly rolled it all the way down.

"Erik..." Charles sounded as if he was drowning.

"Shh, it's alright," Erik said softly, leaning down to press a gentle kiss to the head of Charles' cock before walking on his knees up the bed until he was straddling Charles' waist. He took the lube from Charles' slack grip and squeezed some out which he reached behind himself to coat Charles' cock with.

The noise that escaped Charles only served to heighten Erik's arousal.

Erik took a deep breath and pushed the head of Charles' cock against his opening. The first breach felt... while not completely alien, then it took a moment for Erik to gather his wits enough to press down a little further until the head was in. And it burned.

There was that moment of uncomfortableness, of burning as the muscle was stretched. Feeling the trickles of Charles' mind in the back of his own, Erik finally managed to focus on that and relaxing his body a little more. Slowly, oh so slowly, he sat down until he was seated completely.

Looking down, he realized that Charles had put his hands flat on the bed when he had started and now he looked like he was trying to rip the sheet to pieces.

"Charles," Erik said softly, reaching down to pull Charles' hands up to put them on his hips. "Charles, it's okay."

"I...," Charles broke off and breathed heavily through his nose a few times. "Please don't move, or this will be over in a woefully short time."

Erik grinned widely. "I won't hold it against you if you will cut me the same slack." Erik could feel his own orgasm hovering just on the edge of his awareness. His cock felt like it would explode at the smallest of touches.

At the same time that Erik shifted a little, so did Charles and Erik completely startled himself with a shout of surprise. The small movement had pushed Charles' cock hard against his prostate and he was feeling more than a little dizzy.

Rising up on his knees, Erik slowly slid back down again. And Charles would definitely be leaving bruises on his hips after this.

"Come on, Charles, don't hold back on me," he taunted him breathlessly. "I expected you to be in my head before we even got this..." He gasped loudly when he managed to hit that same point again.

"Erik, please, I need to," Charles cried out, pushing up to meet Erik as he sat back down.

"That's what I meant," Erik gasped. And it was like opening a door to a whole different dimension. One where colors were sharper, scents were stronger and more defined and the sweat on Charles' upper lip glittered like diamonds that Erik just had to lick at.

Bending at the waist to capture Charles' mouth while feeling everything from Charles' side of it as well didn't so much push Erik over the edge of arousal to his climax. It was more like it picked him up, swung him around, turned him inside out and drop kicked him out of the field.

He came back to his senses, still seated on top of Charles, who looked only half conscious, spreadeagled under him.

Erik carefully lifted up to let Charles' softening cock slip from his body. The moan of disapproval this earned him only made him smile. Dropping down next to Charles, he carefully divested Charles of the condom and dropped it into the waste bin on his side of the bed. He sat up to pull the sheets up that they had kicked to the bottom of the bed.

Obviously, Charles was awake enough to notice the wince, because he put his hand on Erik's lower back and caressed it. "You okay?"

"I'm good, fine, perfect," Erik said, feeling sated beyond what he could into words. "I just need to do this more often."

Charles chuckled weakly and cuddled up to him when he finally lay down and pulled up the sheets. "I think that can be arranged," he promised with a yawn. "I can't believe it took this long for us to do this."

"You could've read my mind," Erik muttered. "You would've know."

Charles yawned. "Yeah, well, I was never entirely sure if you slamming up your shields when thinking about me like that was a conscious act."

Erik huffed out a breath of air. "So, why now?" he asked. He was barely awake enough to get that question out.

"You were a tad bit slow on your shielding right from the morning when we left the hotel room," Charles mumbled. "Having you plastered against my back while reading the symbols on the stone was the second to last piece of the puzzle I need to be sure."

"What was the last?" Erik asked, rousing himself enough to pay attention.

"When you threw yourself on top of me, worried about having set off a trap," Charles said with another yawn. "You were broadcasting so loudly I wouldn't have been able to ignore it even if I'd tried."

Erik lay quietly for a moment, then nodded. It made sense. Not to mention the scare he'd had when Charles had almost drowned.

"That too," Charles mumbled, more asleep by now than awake.

"Get some rest," Erik told him, closing his eyes, and just enjoyed being this close and naked and so sated. He had Charles back, alive and well, not to mention in the same bed with the promise of plenty more sex. "I expect you to return the favor when we've had a nap."

Charles' soft, sleepy chuckle followed him into a dreamless sleep.


	26. Chapter 26

**Epilogue**

Erik dropped the last of his boxes on the floor and looked around. All the things he had brought up so far had been put away and it was like Charles' apartment had swallowed it all up already. Well, save for the office stuff that he could tell Charles had made sure had its own side of the office.

Grinning, he shifted the box to the side, using the metal strips he had wrapped around it to make it easier. Just one term to get through for Charles and he'd have six months off for field research which they had planned on spending finding their way back to Atlantis.

"Charles?"

_'Kitchen,'_ Charles told him.

Walking into the kitchen, Erik found Charles on the cordless phone, laughing at something someone at the other end had said.

"I know," Charles said. "Look, just make a list of what you're going to need and run it by Raven. She got all the business genes of the family…" He paused for a moment. "Why, I got the good looking genes."

Charles laughed and nodded. "Right, just make the list and run it by her, okay?" Charles hung up and put the phone on the kitchen table. He leaned back against the table and watched Erik appreciatively. "What took you so long?" he asked.

Erik walked over to him, putting his hands on Charles' hips, leaning in to give him a quick kiss.

Charles had other ideas, and a few minutes later, Erik pushed his t-shirt back down and re-did the button of his jeans. "I seem to lose clothes left right and center when I just want to kiss you."

Charles managed to not look sorry at all.

"What was that all about?" Erik pointed at the phone as he went to put coffee on.

"Tony called - something about a water bottle he took from the sub?" Charles shook his head. "He sounded like he was on speed and he said Hank was double checking it for him."

"Water bottle?" Erik asked.

"Something about whether or not you or I had been drinking from it and where we'd gotten it," Charles said, sitting down on one of the chairs. "He wants to talk to us later today."

Erik switched the coffee maker on, hand twitching towards the electric kettle. Closing his hand into a fist, he just grinned.

Charles sent him a stronger urge to make tea.

"What's the magic word, Charles?" Erik said calmly, taking a cup down from the cupboard.

"I'll suck you off if you make me a cuppa?"

Erik stared unseeingly down at his empty cup. "I would have settled for 'please'," he managed to say, rubbing the back of his neck, feeling it flush warmly.

"Now, where would the fun be in that?" Charles asked, teasingly.

"I'm never going to get the upper hand with you, am I?" Erik asked, taking down another cup while reaching down to adjust himself with the other.

"Oh, you have the upper hand more times than not," Charles said softly.

Erik turned around, staring at him. He had no idea how to ask, or even _what_ to ask for, apart from clarification and…

Charles broke eye contact with him, bowing his head a little. "We never did talk about you offering marriage, even if you really meant it, and…"

Erik drew a deep breath, feeling his heart trying to escape through his chest. Letting the air out slowly, he stepped forward, coffee and tea forgotten. Kneeling in front of Charles, he put his hands on Charles' face, framing it and gently making him look up to meet his eyes.

"I may have said the words in jest," he admitted. "But I did mean it, if you want to, because there's no one else for me." Erik swallowed hard. "Charles, you're a telepath, you have to know by now that it's you or no one at all."

"For better or worse?" Charles raised his hands and put them over Erik's.

"If actual marriage is what you want, yes, but I don't need marriage to tell you every morning what you mean to me or in the evening to lay you out on the bed and show you how I feel about you." This time Erik looked down, feeling more than a little out of his depth, but damned determined to see it through to the end.

"That was very beautiful," Charles said, voice low and barely audible. Clearing his throat, he let out a small laugh. "I never pegged you for the romantic, Erik."

"I'm not," Erik argued, finally looking up to see Charles staring at him in wonder. "I'm really not, and you know that, but I need you to understand I'm here for as long as you'll have me." He shrugged and grinned. "Probably longer, because I never was very good with being told 'no'."

"I know," Charles laughed. "I'm counting on that, you know."

Erik nodded and pulled him down for a soft kiss. One that went on and on, with no sense of hurry, not that it lacked passion, but it had that slow, simmering feel to it that started the burning in Erik's chest and then spread through his body, slowly incinerating everything in its way.

"We're never going to get anything done if this is how we always end up," Erik said with a small laugh.

"I'm not complaining," Charles said, gasping as Erik licked his way down his neck.

"Nor was I, but you're the one who said you had papers to grade," Erik teased, fitting his mouth over the tendon where Charles' neck and shoulder met. He worried it with his teeth, felt the taste of Charles' skin on his tongue, felt the tension rising in the muscles, Charles swallowing rapidly.

"They can wait," Charles said, pushing against Erik's mouth. "'m busy right now."

Erik just grinned against the skin, bit a little harder, feeling and hearing Charles' whimper. He felt Charles carding his fingers through his hair, felt him fisting one hand in it and just holding his head in place.

"I am going to get blamed for every act of procrastination from now on, aren't I?" Erik asked, lips wet against Charles' skin.

"Of course, and even more so if you don't get back to what you were doing," Charles threatened.

"I see how things are going to be," Erik said with a theatrical sigh. "You'll be bossing me around for the rest of our lives, huh?" Before Charles could answer, Erik bit down hard.

Charles' howl could probably be heard well outside the apartment, but Erik really didn't care when Charles pushed him down onto his back on the floor and promised to make him pay.

He could hardly wait.

The end

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the story in November 2011, for the nanowrimo, then re-wrote the idea in 2012, for the nanowrimo again. In the meantime I had found inspiration in an unlikely source. On occasion, I'll spend a weekend day (and sometimes night) playing the sort of hidden object games that come with a full story and storyline for you to follow. Not to mention, many nights I end up on History Channel's Ancient Aliens programs, which gave birth to Erik's dislike of them. I don't dislike them, but I watch the episode accompanied by much giggling.
> 
> I am well aware of the Marvel Universe's use of Atlantis, but this is my version and I'm sticking to it *grins*


End file.
